Bruce Louden, Ph.D.
Professor
Dr. Louden’s specialty is Homeric epic, on which he has published three books: The Odyssey: Structure, Narration, and Meaning (1999, Johns Hopkins UP) and The Iliad: Structure Myth, and Meaning (2006, also John Hopkins UP), and Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East (2011, Cambridge University Press). He also has published on topics including Indo-European myth and poetics, Gilgamesh, the Bible, the Rig Veda, Greek tragedy, Greek lyric, Plato, Roman Comedy, Cicero, the Aeneid, Beowulf, Shakespeare, and Milton, in journals such as Transactions of the American Philological Association, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies, Classical Antiquity, and The Journal of Indo-European Studies. He currently is at work on two more books, one on intersections between Greek myth and the Bible, and another on Shakespeare’s participation in the Renaissance’s reception of classical literature. Dr. Louden has received research fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Center for Hellenic Studies in Washington D.C. He teaches courses on ancient philosophy, Latin and Greek languages and literatures, the Bible, Renaissance and Classical Drama, and Classical Indian Literature.
Books
Homer’s Odyssey and the Near East. Cambridge University Press. 2011.
The Iliad: Structure, Myth, and Meaning. Johns Hopkins University Press. 2006.
The Odyssey: Structure, Narration, and Meaning. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1999
Works in Special Collections
Nineteen Articles in The Homer Encyclopedia. Wiley-Blackwell. 2011.
“Hesiod’s Theogony and the Book of Revelation 4 and 12,” forthcoming in the book, Japhet in the Tents of Shem, Philippe Wadjenbaum, Thomas L. Thompson, ed.
“Odysseus in Troy,” forthcoming in the book, Return to Troy: New Essays on the Director’s Cut. Martin Winkler, ed.
“The Odyssey and Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life,” pp. 208-28 in Reading Homer: Film and Text, ed. Myrsiades. 2009.
“The Gods in Epic,” pp. 90-104 in The Blackwell Guide to Ancient Epic, ed. John Foley. Blackwell 2005.
“Eurybates, Odysseus, and the Duals in Book 9 of the Iliad.” The Colby Quarterly 38: 62-76 (2002). special all-Homer volume.
Journal articles
“Samson, Achilles and Heracles,” 2011, Bible Study Magazine, July & Aug: 34-35.
“Euripides’ Alcestis and John’s Lazarus (John 11:1-44, 12:108),” 2011, Interdisciplinary Humanities, 28.1: 21-31.
“Is There Early Recognition between Penelope and Odysseus? Book 19 in the Larger Context of the Odyssey,” 2011, College Literature 38.2: 76-100.
"Retrospective Prophecy and the Vision in Aeneid 6 and the Book of Revelation," 2009, International Journal of the Classical Tradition 16: 1-18.
"Reading through The Alcestis to The Winter's Tale," 2007, Classical and Modern Literature, 27.2.
"Bacchylides 17: Theseus and Indo-Iranian Apam Napat," 1999, The Journal of Indo-European Studies, 27: 57-78.
"The Tempest, Plautus, and the Rudens," 1999, Comparative Drama, 33: 199-233.
"Eumaios and Alkinoos: The Audience and the Odyssey," 1997, Phoenix, 51: 95-114.
"Milton and the Appropriation of a Homeric Narrative Technique," 1996, Classical and Modern Literature, 16: 325-40.
"Epeios, Odysseus, and the Indo-European Metaphor for Poet," 1996, The Journal of Indo-European Studies, 24: 277-304.
"A Narrative Technique in Beowulf and Homeric Epic," 1996, Oral Tradition, 11: 346-62.
"Categories of Homeric Wordplay," 1995, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 125: 27-46.
"Pivotal Contrafactuals in Homeric Epic," 1993, Classical Antiquity, 12: 181-98.
"An Extended Narrative Pattern in the Odyssey," 1993, Greek, Roman, and Byzantine, Studies, 34: 5-33.