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acknowledgments I began writing this book during a research leave granted by Oberlin College in 1999–2000 and continued my work during the fall semester of 2001 when I was James Doliver Visiting Professor of Humanities at the University of Puget Sound. I am grateful to both institutions for their support. Special thanks are due to Molly Pasco-Pranger and Robert Garrett , my colleagues at Puget Sound, for their companionship and support during that lovely interlude in the Northwest. The central thesis of the book formed the basis for lectures given in 2001 at the University of Puget Sound, the University of Victoria, and Stanford University. I am grateful to my classics colleagues at those institutions for the opportunity to try out my ideas. Much of the material in the book has come out of my association with Oberlin College these past thirty-three years. Teaching the Odyssey in Greek and English to bright undergraduates there has been crucial to me in developing my ideas about the poem. I also owe a great debt to my colleagues in classics at Oberlin, with whom I have discussed and taught Homer over the years, Nathan Greenberg, James Helm, Kirk Ormand, Jennifer Lynn, Andrew Wilburn, and Benjamin Lee. Their insights are all over my work, and their friendship has been a source of joy in my life. Karen Barnes, Administrative Assistant of Classics, has helped me in countless ways for the past twenty-three years. Nothing I have published could have seen the light of day without her support. My association with the University of Michigan Press has also been a pleasure. Christopher Hebert, the classics editor there, and Christine Byks-Jazayeri, his editorial assistant, have given me great advice and support throughout the process of bringing this book into print. I am also grateful to the two anonymous readers for the press whose thorough and insightful readings improved the book and saved me from many errors. I owe a special debt of gratitude to my friend and colleague David Young, Longman Professor of English Emeritus at Oberlin, who read the entire manuscript and offered many excellent suggestions that have improved the ‹nal version of the book. His encouragement and support during the time I was revising the book this past year have been invaluable . As always, my wife, Mary Kirtz Van Nortwick, has been an unwavering source of support and counsel. I have discussed most of the ideas for this book with her and am grateful for her unfailingly intelligent and sympathetic response. The book is dedicated to her with love and gratitude. xiv acknowledgments ...

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