The Norton Anthology of Western
Literature
The Norton Anthology of
English Literature
is an
anthology of English literature published by the W. W.
Norton & Company.
First published in 1962, it has gone through nine editions in a half-century;as of 2006 there are over eight million copies in print, making it
the publisher's best-selling anthology. M. H.
Abrams, a critic
and scholar of Romanticism, served as General Editor for its first seven
editions, before handing the job to Stephen Greenblatt, a Shakespeare scholar and Harvard professor. The anthology provides an overview
of poetry, drama, prose fiction, essays, and letters from Beowulf to the beginning of the 21st century.
In Greek mythology, Helen of Troy was the most beautiful woman in the world. A
daughter of the god Zeus,
she is best known for the part she played in causing the Trojan War, a story told by Homer in the Iliad and the Odyssey. Some
scholars suggest that Helen was also a very ancient goddess associated with trees
and birds.
Helen and Menelaus: Menelaus intends to strike Helen; captivated by her beauty, he
drops his sword. A flying Eros and Aphrodite (on
the left) watch the scene. Detail of an Attic red-figure krater, c. 450–440 BC (Paris, Louvre)
Classical Greek
stamps first appeared in 1861.
A used Block of the 1861 Paris
Printing of the 1 Lepta denomination is shown above.
Plates identical to those of
the classic 1849 Ceres Head postage stamps of France were used for the first stamps of Greece,
with the only difference being in the Greek inscriptions and in the vignettes
showing the profile of Hermes,
instead of the profile of Ceres. Hermes (Roman:
Mercury) was the ancient
Greek messenger of the Olympian gods, a very appropriate personification for
the first adhesive letter postage stamps of Greece.
The true story of one of history's most
luminous and influential leaders, Alexander the Great--a man who had conquered 90% of the known world by the age of twenty-seven.
The story chronicles Alexander's path to becoming a living legend, from a youth
fueled by dreams of myth, glory and adventure to his lonely death as a ruler of a vast Empire.
Alexander is the incredible story of a life that united the Known World and
proved if nothing else, fortune favors the bold.
I came, I saw, I conquered.
"Veni, vidi, vici"
is a Latin
phrase popularly attributed to Julius Caesar who,
according to Appian, used the phrase in a letter to the Roman
Senate around 47 BC after he had achieved a quick
victory in his short war against Pharnaces II of Pontus at the Battle of Zela. The phrase
is used to refer to a swift, conclusive victory.
The
most widespread and socially significant form of same-sex sexual relations in
ancient Greece was between adult
men and pubescent or adolescent boys, known as pederasty (marriages
in Ancient Greece between men and women were also age structured, with men in their thirties commonly
taking wives in their early teens).
Though sexual relationships between adult men
did exist, at least one member of each of these relationships flouted social
conventions by assuming a
passive sexual role. It is unclear how such relations between women were
regarded in the general society, but examples do exist as far back as the time of Sappho.
