Greek Mythology

The Adventures of Odysseus

The Odyssey

Structure

I. Ithaca without Odysseus

II. Odysseus’s adventures (mostly in flashback)

III. Reunion at Ithaca

Books 1-4: the maturity of Telemachus

Books 5 -12: Odysseus’s adventures

Books 13-24: Odysseus back at Ithaca

The Order of Narrative

• The tenth year after Troy fell• Odysseus on the island of Calypso• Odysseus about to sail back with Zeus’s help• Odysseus arriving at Scherie, home to the Phae

acians• Odysseus relating his adventures to his host• Odysseus’s way home with Phaeacian’s help

Books of The Odyssey: 1

• Books 1-4: Zeus’s decision & the scene of Ithaca

• Book 5: Calypso• Book 6: Nausicaa• Books 7-8: Scherie• Book 9: Polyphemus• Book 10: Aeolus• Book 11: the underworld

Books of The Odyssey: 2

• Book 12: the cattle of the Sun god• Book 13: arrival at Ithaca• Book 14: the Swineherd• Book 15: Telemachus back home• Book 16: Father & Son• Book 17: Stranger at the gate• Book 18: Beggar King• Book 19: Penelope

Books of The Odyssey: 3

• Book 20: portents gather

• Book 21: Odysseus strings his bow

• Book 22: slaughter

• Book 23: rooted bed

• Book 24: peace & order restored

A Question to Ponder Over

• Why Homer spent so many books on the stuff other than adventures?

A Possible Answer

• Adventures are not the focus of The Odyssey.

A Further Question to Ponder Over

• If the adventures are not the focus, what is the major concern of Homer in this epic?

After reading

• What were the concerns of Homer, if adventures themselves were not his focus?

• If you were Odysseus, what is the biggest temptation? Why?

Adventures as temptations to test Odysseus’s mental & physical

endurance• Lotus flower: forgetfulness of home and

family

• Circe: life of ease and self-indulgence

• Phaeacia: the love of a young princess

• Sirens: to live in the memory of the

glorious past

• Calypso: greatest temptation immortality

What are the essences of life?

Possible answers:

• Basic needs

• Sense of security

• Sense of belonging

• Dignity

• Self-fulfillment

Odysseus’s dedication to life

• The value Homer stresses in The Odyssey as a contrast/supplement to The Iliad

• Glory in battlefield is probably not the only value in life

• In refusing Kalypso, Odysseus chooses the human condition, with all its struggle, its disappoints, and its inevitable end.

Odysseus’s dedication to life

• Against the dark background of Achilles’s regret for life, Odysseus’s dedication to life—his acceptance of limitations and his ability to seize its possibilities—shines out.

• (the teacher’s note) Odysseus’s heroic qualities in seizing the possibilities of life are also set off by the vulgarity of his crew.

Other important notes

• The celebration of return to ordinary life as a worthy prize after excitement, toil, and danger

• The setting right of social disorder

• Telemachus as a foil/potential rival to Odysseus’s mature wisdom

The Mysterious Figure of Penelope

• Her dilemma in marriage: the weaving as a metaphor

• The ambivalence in her trick of web

• Her setting up the contest of the bow

• The trick of the marriage bed

• What motivates her to do so?

Homer’s affirmation of the Greek political life

• Through the disorder created by the suitors during the absence of the ruler, Homer affirms Odysseus’s restoration of hierarchical and patriarchal order in house and polity.

Homer’s affirmation of the Greek political life

• Self-fashioning by reference to the foreign:

---the Cyclops

---Aeolous

---the Laestrygonians

---Calypso

---Circe

---the Phaeacians

The great difficulty in resolving the issue of violence

• The Odyssey is no more successful than The Iliad in resolving the problem of violence.

• How can human aggression be controlled, if not eliminated?

• Can violence within the community be channeled into safe, perhaps socially creative, forms?

Homer’s self-fashioning of the Greek civilization by reference to the foreign

• See Norton, p. 104