THE ALEXANDRIAN ‘ILIAD’: By George Velev

The Alexandrian Iliad by Georgi Velev The book proposes a new approach towards the so called Homeric question and explores unsuspected sides of the Iliad that was created in the Alexandrian library. The book comprises twelve chapters. The research starts with a discovery concerning the spiral construction of the Achilles’ shield. Chapter Two analyzes the temporality of the plot. It becomes obvious that the time is followed by means of ‘agglutinated’ scenes and circumstances – some from the very beginning of the Trojan War, others from the final battles during its tenth year. Chapter Three deals with the Catalogue of the ships, here the exact number of both Achaean and Trojan warriors who participate in the conflict is discovered. Chapter Four is dedicated to the philosophic dimensions in the Iliad. Chapters Five, Six, Seven, and Eight deal with the strange events – a summer solstice, a solar eclipse, earthquakes – as well as their rationalization and research. Chapter Nine points at the exact period, location and people regarding the creation of the Iliad. Chapters Ten and Eleven focus on the mysterious fight between Achilles and Hector, and the invisible presence of Prometheus. The main theme in Chapter Twelve is the overthrowing of Zeus that brings to its end the Olympian epoch and gives the beginning of the Heroic times. Georgi Velev (born in 1952) is a Bulgarian literary researcher. He has written books about the Bulgarian and European classical writers. Among his research published in Bulgarian should be noted the following: ‘The Genius… the unspoken. 150 years from the birth of Hristo Botev’ (1997) ‘Dostoevsky. Shakespeare. Adventures behind the stage’ (2003; 2016) ‘The unread Iliad’ (2010) ‘The message Pobiti kamani [the upright stones]’ (2011) Read more