Ransom
North Sydney
:
Knopf Australia
,
2009
Z1529380
2009
single work
novel
(taught in 20 units)
'With learning worn lightly and in his own lyrical language, David Malouf revisits Homer's Iliad. Focusing on the unbreakable bonds between men - Priam and Hector, Patroclus and Achilles, Priam and the cart-driver hired to retrieve Hector's body. Pride, grief, brutality, love and neighbourliness are explored.' (Publisher's blurb)
This unit explores the theme of the journey in writing from the distant past to the present. The journey comes in many written forms—quest, pilgrimage, exploration, emigration, wandering, travel and tourism. Journey texts capture the aspirations of the places and times in which they are written, but they also may reveal a society's challenges, fears and anxious confrontations with cultural difference. The unit introduces students to the reading of imaginative literature within particular historical contexts and is a good preparation for further study in both past and contemporary literatures.
