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  1. M Feb 5, 2024, Odyssey: introduction (handout on Sakai)

hear some Greek:

  • Harvard professor reads Iliad1-16

https://classics.fas.harvard.edu/publications/homer-iliad-11–16-read-greek-gregory-nagy

  • Greek classicist reads Homer, Odyssey1-27 (jump to 53 seconds)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MOvVWiDsPWQ&t=111s

 

Odyssey in one or two words: “coming home,” nostos (νόστος), but also still kleos (κλέος)

Nostos = homecoming

“nostalgia” originally “painful longing for home;” now = longing for past

Also form and style, storytelling.

 

Same world as Iliad?

Peace, Family, Travel, adventure

Women, enslaved persons, non-aristocrats; one 19th cent author thought had been written by a woman, one 20th century author novel about Homer’s daughter

Emily Wilson translation (2018)

  • first by a woman into English
  • some parts dealing with women previously translated wrong: maids are not maids but household slaves
  • also sleeker< same number of lines, fewer words, very smooth
  • leaves out some formulae and epithets (e.g. what sort of thing has escaped the barrier of your teeth)
  • more casual and readable language

Odysseus in first line gets an epithet: polutropos, of many turns/tricks?  Complicated??

 

Heroism

cf. to Iliad, O compares its hero to Achilles

 

Structure of Odyssey:

1-4 T, very little of O; T visits Nestor, Menelaus & Helen  ((we will read 3 books at a time))

5-8 O leaves Calypso, helped by Nausicaa

9-12 O tells of wanderings (flashback)

13-16 O on Ithaka, T comes back (stories-lies)

17-20 O at house in disguise (stories-lies)

21-24 O revealed, avenged, reunited

 

characters

  • Odysseus (Ulysses = Roman name)
  • Penelope
  • Telemachus
  • Suitors: Antinous, Eurymachus, sometimes act nicer than they are; some others are important
  • household slave-women (maids)
  • some enslaved herdsmen we meet later
  • Gods:
  • Zeus, Poseidon; Athena imp; Calypso and Circe (three female gods)
    (talk later about gods)
  • Agamemnon story: soon; killed by wife; his son Orestes kills his mom
  • Nestor, Menelaus, Helen
  • Nausicaa, parents King Alcinous & Queen Arete: audience for O in 9-12
  • people he sees in Land of the Dead

 

wanderings include:

  • Lotus eaters
  • King of the winds
  • Cyclops
  • Circe (Wilson says Circe; Greek =  Κίρκη)
  • trip to Land of the Dead (like the Underworld)
  • Island of the Cattle of the Sun
  • Scylla and Charybdis