The Odyssey

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The Odyssey

• Background Information

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• Almost 3000 years ago, people who lived in the
  starkly beautiful part of the world we now call
  Greece were telling stories about a great war
• Homer gathered these stories together telling
  them as one unified epic
• The Iliad
• The Odyssey

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• Homers stories probably can be traced to
  historical struggles for control of the waterway
  leading from the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara
  and the Black Sea
• 1200 BC (as long ago for Homer as the Pilgrims
  landing at Plymouth Rock is for us)

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• Homers first epic was the ILIAD tells of a 10
  year war fought on the plains outside the walls
  of a great city called Troy
• Ruins in western Turkey
• Trojan War the people of Troy vs an alliance of
  Greek kings
• The cause of the war was jealousy Helen
  abandoned her husband Menelaus (a Greek king) and
  ran off with Paris (a prince of Troy)

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• The ODYSSEY the attempt of one Greek soldier,
  Odysseus, to get home after the Trojan War
• All epic poems in the Western world follow these
  basic patterns

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Epics Values

• EPICS are long narrative poems that tell of the
  adventures of heroes who in some way embody the
  values of their civilizations
• Greeks used these poems for centuries in schools
  to teach Greek virtues
• Later cultures imitated the style using their own
  value systems

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• Rome AENEID
• France SONG OF ROLAND
• Italy THE DIVINE COMEDY
• India MAHABHARATA RAMAYANA
• Mali - SUNDIATA

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• ILIAD primary model for the epic of war
• ODYSSEY the model for the epic of the long
  journey
• THE WIZARD OF OZ
• STAR WARS
• ODYSSEY is the more widely read of the two stories

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The War-Story Background Violence Brutality

• The ILIAD set in the 10th and final year of the
  Trojan War
• Greeks attacked Troy
• Greek kings banded together under the leadership
  of Agamemnon
• 1000 ships sailed across the Aegean Sea laid
  siege to the walled city of Troy

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• Greeks were eventually victorious
• Gained entrance to Troy
• Reduced the city to smoldering ruins
• Butchered all the inhabitants (took some as
  slaves back to Greece)
• Achilles greatest of the Greek warriors who
  died young in the final year of the war
• Agamemnon was murdered by his unfaithful wife
  when he returned from Troy

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• Odysseus
• Subject of THE ODYSSEY
• Known as much for his brains as his strength

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Odysseus A Hero in Trouble

• Heroes were thought of as a special class of
  aristocrats
• They were placed between the gods and ordinary
  human beings
• Experienced pain death BUT always on top of
  the world

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• Odysseus is different
• He is a hero in trouble
• We can relate to Odysseus

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• THE ODYSSEY
• Melancholy postwar disillusionment
• Odysseus great soldier in the war but the
  monsters he faces do not care about his war
  record
• Ithaca lacks respect for him when he returns

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• Odysseus had married Penelope in the years before
  the great war
• Had one son, Telemachus
• He was still a toddler when Odysseus was called
  to war
• Odysseus did not want to go to war even though he
  was under treaty to do so
• Pretended to be insane to avoid going to war but
  he was quickly figured out

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The Wooden-Horse Trick

• Odysseus performed extremely well as a soldier
  commander once in Troy
• He thought of the wooden-horse trick that would
  be the downfall of Troy

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The Ancient World Ours

• World of Odysseus was harsh familiar with
  violence
• Act like pirates on their journey home
• Enter towns carry off all their worldly goods
• Pots, pans, cattle, sheep
• palaces elaborate mud and stone farmhouses

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A Search For Their Places in Life

• Searching for right relationships with one
  another with the people around them
• Theme
• Story begins with Telemachus who is now 20 years
  old
• Threatened by rude, powerful men swarming about
  his own home, pressuring his mother to marry one
  of them
• Men want to rob Telemachus of his inheritance

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• Odysseus is stranded on an island, longing to
  find a way to get back to his wife, child, and
  home
• 10 years since Odysseus sailed from Troy
• 20 years since he left Ithaca
• Odysseus searching for inner peace (as we are all
  in search of our true selves)

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Relationships with the gods

• MYTHS traditional stories, rooted in a
  particular culture, that usually explain a
  belief, a ritual, or a mysterious natural
  phenomenon
• Essentially religious

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• Homer is always concerned with the relationship
  between humans and gods
• Homer is religious
• The gods control all things
• Athena, the goddess of wisdom (always w/
  Odysseus)
• ALTER EGO a reflection of a heros best or
  worst qualities
• Poseidon, god of the sea known for arrogance
  and a certain brutishness
• Odysseus himself can be violent cruel

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Who Was Homer?

• No one knows for sure!
• A blind minstrel, or singer, who came from the
  island of Chios
• Just a legend?
• Too good to be true?
• Model for a class of wandering bards or minstrels
  later called rhapsodes

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• RHAPSODES, or singers of tales historians and
  entertainers as well as they mythmakers of their
  time
• No written history
• No movies no TV no Bible or book of religious
  stories
• Minstrels traveled from community to community
  singing of recent events

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How Were the Epics Told?

• Oral epic poets are still composing today in
  Eastern Europe other parts of the world
• ILIAD ODYSSEY originally told aloud by people
  who could not read or write
• Follow a basic story line
• Singers were very talented worked very hard
• Audience must listen closely

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• Repetition in Homeric epics

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• HOMERIC or EPIC SIMILES
• Similes that compare heroic or epic events to
  simple easily understandable everyday events

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• A story as long as THE ODYSSEY (11,300 lines)
  would not be told at one sitting
• Summarize parts tell the rest in detail

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A Live Performance

• Imagine a large hall full of people who are
  freshly bathed, rubbed with fine oils, and draped
  in clean tunics
• Smell the meat being cooked over charcoal
• Hear the sound of voices
• Imagine wine being freely poured
• See the flickering reflections of the great
  cooking fires torches that light the room
• A certain anticipation hangs in the air
• Perhaps Homer himself is in town, and will appear
  and entertain tonight!