Chapter Twenty-OneLecture One

The Return of Odysseus

The Return of Odysseus

• More folktale patterns than the Iliad

• Ends happily, hence it was compared with comedy, not tragedy (as was the Iliad)

An Overview of Odysseus's Life

Not in the text, but perhaps useful to set the context

Overview of Odysseus's Life

• The Odyssey begins in the 20th year after the beginning of the war

• The first half of the epic is embedded memories; songs within songs

• The great adventures of the Odyssey are memories

Overview of Odysseus's Life

• Laertes, king of Ithaca and son of Autolycus, marries Anticleia

• Their household slave is Eurycleia

• Son, Odysseus

• Odysseus has a dog, Argus and a special hunting bow

Overview of Odysseus's Life

• Odysseus marries Penelope, daughter of the Spartan King Icarius

• Builds a bed build around a tree

• Odysseus joins the expedition after their son Telemachus is born

• His advice to Penelope: “If I don’t return, remarry when Telemachus comes of age.”

Overview of Odysseus's Life

• After the war, for years, he is blown around the Mediterranean– Cicones, Lotus-Eaters, Cyclops Polyphemus,

Aeolus, Laestrygonians, Circe

• The underworld

• Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, the cattle of the Sun, Ogygia and Calypso

Overview of Odysseus's Life

• In the 17th year of his absence, 108 suitors begin coming to Odysseus’s palace

• The Odyssey begins in the 20th year

• The gods decide it is time for Odysseus to go home

Outline of the Odyssey

• Begins when the gods decide Odysseus should return and when events in Ithaca have reached a crisis point.

Books 1–4 “Telemacheia”

• Stirred by Athena, Telemachus fails to rally the men of Ithaca against the suitors

• Then, accompanied by Athena disguised as Mentor, he goes to find news of his father

• Nestor in Pylos; Menelaus in Sparta

• The suitors learn he is away and plan an ambush when he returns

Outline of the Odyssey

• Book 5: Calypso releases Odysseus, but he is nearly killed by Poseidon

• Books 6–7: Odysseus lands on Scherie, the island of the Phaeacians– saved by Nausicaa, the daughter of the king,

and taken to the palace

• Books 8–12: Odysseus finally says who he is, and relates the tales of his adventures at Troy

Outline of the Odyssey

• Books 13–21: Odysseus arrives in Ithaca, but disguises himself as a beggar, undergoing various forms of abuse at the hands of the suitors and others

• Books 21–2: the contest and the slaughter of the suitors

Outline of the Odyssey

• Book 23–4: Odysseus proves to Penelope that he is Odysseus, ghosts of the suitors in the underworld; battle between Odysseus and his allies and the relatives of the suitors; Zeus and Athena intervene; Odysseus makes a symbolic end to his travels.

End