1. Introduction to the Odyssey

2. Key Ideas: The Odyssey The Odyssey is an epic.
An epic is a long narrative poem about the deeds of a hero.
The epic hero often portrays the goals and values of the society
Epics are based in part on historical fact, blending legend with truth.

3. Epics at a Glance

4. The Epic and Epic Hero
In literature, the epic is a long narrative poem about the deeds of a hero.
The epic hero is a larger-than-life figure who undertakes great journeys and performs deed requiring remarkable strength and cunning.

5. Epic Hero: Characteristics
Possesses superhuman strength, craftiness, and confidence.
Is helped and harmed by interfering gods.
Embodies ideals and values that a culture considers admirable.
Emerges victorious from perilous situations.

6. Epic Plot Involves a long journey, full of complications, such as:
Strange creatures
Divine intervention
Large-scale events
Treacherous weather

7. Homer

8. Homer
There are many theories about the blind poet Homer, who is credited with writing the Iliad and the Odyssey.
Homer is said to have lived between 900 and 700 B.C.

9. Oral History
Homer’s epics are all that remains of a series of poems that told the whole story of the Trojan War.
In later centuries, the Iliad and the Odyssey were memorized by professional reciters, who performed them at religious festivals throughout Greece.

10. The setting for the Iliad is
the city of Troy.

11. A beauty contest. The participants were Athena, Aphrodite, and Hera.
Why does the Trojan
War begin?
A beauty contest.
The participants
were
Athena,
Aphrodite, and
Hera.

12. Paris, a Prince from the city of
Troy, was the judge.
The prize -a golden apple
inscribed “to the
fairest.”
The goddesses
bribed Paris to choose
them over the others.

13. beautiful woman -- Helen
Aphrodite’s offer was the best.
Paris chose her.
What prize did Paris receive?
The world’s most
beautiful woman -- Helen

14. She just happens to be
the wife of King Menelaus
of Greece.

15. King Agamemnon, the brother of King Menelaus, gathers all
the Greeks.
They sail to Troy.

16. Helen of Troy
became the
“face that
launched a
thousand
ships.”

17. And the Trojan War begins.
It will last for ten years.

18. The Iliad The Iliad takes place during the tenth year of this war.
It tells the story of the Greek warrior, Achilles and his quarrel with Menelaus’ brother Agamemnon, ending with the death and funeral of Paris’ brother Hector.
After Hector’s death, the Greeks brought the war to an end thanks to the cleverness of Odysseus ruler of the island of Ithaca.

19. To break up the ten-year war, Odysseus thought of a scheme to make the Trojans think that the Greeks had finally given up.
He ordered a giant wooden horse to be left at the gates of Troy.
The Trojans, not seeing any Greeks, assumed that the Greeks had fled and left the horse as a peace offering.

20. They took the horse inside the city, only to find that the horse was filled with Greek soldiers and that Troy was doomed.

21. The Odyssey is about
the hero Odysseus’
long trip home to Ithaca.
His trip home
takes
10 years.

22. Odysseus’ trip home

23. Epic Conventions

24. 1. Invocation of the Muse
A formal plea for help to
the Muse Calliope.

25. 2. In medias res
The epic plunges right
into the action -- it
begins “in the middle
of things.”
Flashbacks provide
background information.

26. 3. Epic similes
Use of extended similes.

27. 4. Metrical Structure
Dactylic Hexameter
six stressed syllables per line
Closely resembles speech.

28. 5. Stock epithets
A descriptive phrase used
in place of a noun or
proper noun.
“Grey-eyed Athena”