1. Happy Monday!
Warm Up:
Look at your Due Date Calendar to see what’s coming up this Term.
Read the handout titled “About the Author” (It’s 2 sided). Highlight/underline any information you think is vital to understanding The Odyssey

2. The Odyssey
“The man of many turns…” (polutropos) Character is fate – who a man is also determines how far he goes, how widely he is tested, what sort of a home he has made on his own.
Heroism
Adaptability
Intelligence
The journey tests his skills and provides opportunity to fulfill destiny.

3. Troy (Asia Minor)
Ismarus - Cicones
Lotus-Eaters
Cyclops
Aeolus
Laestrygonians
Circe’s island of Aeaea
Land of the Dead – Tiresias
Sirens
Charybdis
Scylla
Thrinacia – Helios’ (Greek sun god) cattle
Calypso on Ogygia Isle
Phaeacia
Ithaca

4. What is Epic Poetry?
A long narrative poem on a great and serious subject that is centered on the actions of a heroic figure.
Based on oral tradition (myths & legends)
Elements of Epic Poetry
Material is familiar to audience – action occurs in heroic past- periods of upheveal
Myths about the gods and legends about a variety of heroes & their exploits were in constant circulation & development, handed down from generation to generation.
Traditional language
Formulaic pieces: themes, episodes, details, scope, and tone
Bards (rhapsode) developed formalized language to chant the stories in public performances
Conventions
Invocation
In medias res
Catalogues
Epithets (repeated)
Simile
Speeches
Manner of address – courtly patronymics
Recapitulations – retelling of stories by poets within the epic
Epic = Drama + Narrative

5. Purpose of Epic Poetry
An epic poem entertains, teaches, and inspires the audience with examples of how people can strive and succeed against great odds and challenges.
An epic commemorates a culture’s heroes.
Defines heroic code
Greek cultural values:
Arete
Kleos
xenia

6. Homer
Greek poet
thought to be blind, but describes events as a seeing person
lived around 1200 B.C.E
First written down using adapted Phoenician letters on scraps of hide.

7. The Odyssey
Deals with Odysseus’ adventures as he returns to his home in Ithaca
Wanderings (10 years)
Homecoming (return to Penelope & Telemachus)

8. The Call to Adventure
Odysseus seeks to return home to Ithaca (own choice)
Wanderings – driven about by the winds of angered Poseidon
Transferred from the known to the unknown (treasure and danger)
Campbell: “This first stage of the mythological journey signifies that destiny has summoned the hero and transferred his spiritual center of gravity from the pale of his society to a zone unknown. This fateful region of both treasure and danger may be variously represented: as a distant land, a forest, a kingdom underground, beneath the waves, or above the sky, a secret island, lofty mountaintop, or profound dream state; but it is always a place of strangely fluid and polymorphous beings, unimaginable torments, superhuman deeds, and impossible delights.
Odysseus is driven about the Mediterranean by the winds of the angered god, Poseidon. He encounters a series of obstacles.
Telemachus leaves home at the advice of Athena. (parallel narrative)

9. Aid Mentor Companions Supernatural Athena Zeus Eurylochus Hermes
Once the hero has committed to the quest, his/her guide appears or becomes known.
Athena is a protective figure who provides the protecting power of destiny

10. Challenges & Obstacles
Sirens - group of females who lured sailors by their singing
The point where the hero crosses into the field of adventure, leaving the known limits of his/her world and venturing into an unknown and dangerous realm where the rules and limits are not known. The road of trials is a series of tests, tasks, or ordeals that the hero must undergo to begin the transformation.
Meeting the goddess –
Woman as temptress

11. Challenges & Obstacles
Scylla - monster with 12 feet and 6 heads with 3 rows of teeth, carries off a sailor in each mouth
Charybdis - 3 times a day pulls sailors into her whirlpool
Poseidon – God of the Sea; Odysseus has angered him

12. Challenges & Obstacles
Circe – an evil witch who turns Odysseus’ men into pigs
Polyphemus – a Cyclops who traps Odysseus’ men and tries to eat them