Components of the epic memory and recollection ~ temporality the monument (including the writing of epic itself) contexts of profound cultural change

located bodies – one the heroic body

Hades how are the shades of the dead described in this place? family where they came from what they did or what happened to them Achilles rejoices in the deeds of his son (the epic itself announces its topic of the deeds of men and gods 1.338) real death is silence, obscurity, amnesia

Phaeacia Odysseus confronts his own fame his glorious deeds immortalized in song in an aristocratic household where he reveals his family and lineage proves himself in the games and receives the goods appropriate to his rank to enable his return home

the monsters the Cyclops - wholly asocial the Sirens – the duplicity of language (and women) Scylla and Charybdis – wholly ‘other’, consuming the self without grace or burial Calypso – divine but holding only the promise of being alone and forgotten Proteos (Book 4) these are the means also by which the hero becomes himself

the hero agathos – head of the household/oikos a man of arete – position, wealth, excellence, the privilege of leisure a man of time – honor and the wealth owing to position, the goods possessed a man of philoi – those people and things held dear

the agon good intentions are irrelevant to the loser or the dead the compensation for the agathos fighting in the front rank is kudos – success and its renown and kleos – fame the culture of the agathos is a public one of results and fame or shame – hero and actions are identical

the heroic body what is its location? outside itself to be found in what others say confronting otherness and death ‘in a beautiful death excellence no longer has to be measured indefinitely against others and keep proving itself in confrontation; it is realized at one stroke and forever in the exploit that puts an end to the life of the hero’ Vernant