Odyssey - Manasquan Public Schools

OdysseyHomer’s Odyssey is generally considered to bethe sequel to the Iliad. Unlike many sequels inthe modern era, however, the Odyssey actuallyseems to be an improvement, in some respects,on the original and is quite capable of standingas an independent work.

Odysseia, which has been this poem’s name inGreek since Herodotus called it that in the fifthcentury BCE, means simply ‘‘the story of Odys-seus.’’ That story refers to the ten-year-long returntrip of Odysseus from Troy to his island home ofIthaca, off the west coast of Greece. Because theepic pertains to this long journey, the term odysseyhas since come to mean any significant and diffi-cult journey.

For more than fifteen hundred years, the Iliadand theOdyssey set the western standard bywhichepic poetry was judged. The epic form in poetryseemed to die out withMilton’s Paradise Lost, butthe story of Odysseus has remained a perennialfavorite. Robert Fagles’s translation of the Odys-sey, a Penguin Classics edition, appeared in 2006.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

Everything known about Homer is either tradi-tional, mythical, or some kind of an educatedguess. Traditionally, probably following theOdyssey and one of the so-called Homeric hymnsfrom the middle of the seventh century BCE,

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HOMER

C. 700 BCE

(c) 2011 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved.

Homer, like his own character Demodocus, wasbelieved to be a blind bard or singer of tales.

At least seven different places have claimedthat Homer was born on their soil in the ancientworld. The two with the strongest claims are theisland of Chios and the city of Smyrna (modernIzmir, in Turkey). Because he recordsmany detailsof Ionian geography and seems to know less aboutother areas (like western Greece, where part of theOdyssey is set), and because the most commondialect in Homer’s Greek is Ionic, many scholarsbelieve that Homer probably lived and worked inIonia, the region along the west coast of what isnow Turkey.

When Homer lived and wrote is open fordebate. Some ancient writers believed that Homerlived relatively close to the time of the events hedescribed. The fifth-century historian Herodotusin hisHistories said thatHomer could not possiblyhave livedmore than fourhundredyears before thefifth century. Nonetheless, the rediscovery of writ-ing by theGreeks around750 BCE and the develop-ment, at about the same time, of some of thefighting techniques described in the Iliad have led

scholars to assignHomer to themiddle or late partof the eighth century BCE

Accurate dating of Homer’s poems is impos-sible, but it is generally thought that the Iliad is theolder of the two, as the Odyssey displays certainadvanced stylistic features. Both poems were com-pleted before the Peisistratid dynasty came topower in Athens in the sixth century BCE, as amember of that family commissioned a standardedition of the poems and ordered that both theIliad and the Odyssey be recited in full at theGreat Panathenaia, a religious festival in honorof Athena, which was observed in Athens everyfour years.

There have been various controversies aboutHomer since his time, beginning with the conten-tion over just exactlywhere andwhen hewas born,lived, and died. Some scholars have questionedwhether Homer existed at all, whether he actuallywrote the poems attributed to him or compiledthem from popular folklore, and whether thesame person is responsible for both the Iliad andthe Odyssey.

Many scholars likely would agree that therewas an epic poet called Homer and that this poetwas instrumental in producing the Iliad andOdyssey in their known forms.

PLOT SUMMARY

The Background to the StoryAfter ten years, the Trojan War is over and theAchaeans head for home, with varying results.Some, like Nestor, come home quickly to findthings pretty much as they left them. Others, likeAgamemnon,make it homequicklybut find thingsconsiderably changed. Still others, like Menelaus,wander for a time but eventually return homesafely and little the worse for wear.

Odysseus, by contrast, has no end of troublegetting home. As the story opens, it is the tenthyear since the end of the war, a full twenty yearssince Odysseus sailed off for Troy with the rest ofthe Achaean forces.

Book 1: Athena Inspires TelemachusIn a council of the gods, Athena asks her fatherwhy Odysseus is still stuck on Calypso’s island,ten years after the end of the war. Zeus respondsthat Poseidon is angry at Odysseus for havingblinded his son, Polyphemus. But since Poseidon

Homer (Hulton Archive / Getty Images)

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is temporarily out of the country, so to speak,Zeus gives her permission to begin arrangementsfor Odysseus’s return. Athena goes to Ithaca indisguise and inspires Odysseus’s son Telemachusto go in search of news of his father. Heartenedby her words, Telemachus announces his inten-tion to sail to the mainland.

Book 2: Telemachus Sails to PylosTelemachus calls an assembly and asks for assis-tance in getting to the mainland. His independentattitude does not sit well with hismother’s suitors,

who oppose him in the assembly so that he doesnot receive the aid he seeks. After making secretpreparations, Telemachus and the disguisedAthenadepart for Pylos that same evening.

Book 3: Nestor Tells What He KnowsTelemachus and Athena arrive in Pylos to findNestor and his family offering sacrifice to Posei-don. After joining in the ritual, Telemachus intro-duces himself to Nestor and explains his purposein coming. Nestor has heard news of the return ofbothMenelaus andAgamemnon, which he relates

MEDIAADAPTATIONS

� In 1641, Claudio Monteverdi composed theopera Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in Patria (The Returnof Ulysses), treating Odysseus’s return toIthaca after his journey.

� In 1928, Richard Strauss composed the operaDie agyptische Helena, based on the accountof Helen’s visit to Egypt in Book 4 of theOdyssey.

� In 1954, Dino De Laurentiis produced thefilm Ulisse (released in English as Ulysses inthe same year), directed by Mario Cameriniand starring Kirk Douglas as Ulysses andAnthony Quinn as Antinoos. This film wasre-released as a DVD in 2009.

� In 1963, PietroFrancisci directed the filmErcolesfida Sansone, released in 1965 in the UnitedStates asHercules, Samson, and Ulysses.

� The 1967 British film Ulysses, based on the1922 James Joyce novel by the same title,starredMartinDempsey andBarbara Jefford.

� In 1967, the British rock band Cream, madeup of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and GingerBaker, recorded the song ‘‘Tales of BraveUlysses’’ on their second album, DisraeliGears. The song includes characters, themes,and motifs from the epic.

� There is at least a symbolic link betweenHomer’s poem and the classic 1968 MGM

production 2001: A Space Odyssey, directedby Stanley Kubrick and starring Keir Dullea.

� In 1969, Radiotelevisione Italiana (RAI)produced a television version of the epic,directed by Mario Bara and Franco Rossi.

� In May 1997, NBC television produced atwo-part miniseries of the Odyssey, starringArmandAssante, Isabella Rossellini, VanessaWilliams, and Irene Pappas. This productionwas re-released onDVDbyLionsgate Studiosin 2001.

� The 1996 Penguin Highbridge Audio cassetteof the Odyssey uses the Robert Fagles trans-lation and is narrated by Sir IanMcKellen.

� The 2000 Universal Pictures film O Brother,Where Art Thou? is a comical remake of theOdyssey set in the 1930s South with blue-grass music.

� Noted storyteller Sebastian Lockwood pro-duced a one-man video of his performanceof the Odyssey in 2006.

� ThePerseusProject atTuftsUniversity,whichwas available as of 2010 on CD-ROM fromYale University Press, offers both the originalGreek text and the Loeb Classical Librarytranslation in English, together with back-ground informationonmanyof the charactersand places in the poem.

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to Telemachus, but has had no news of Odysseussince sailing home from Troy ten years previously.Nestor sends Telemachus, accompanied by one ofhis sons, Pisistratus, to visit Menelaus in Sparta.

Book 4: In theHomeofMenelausandHelenTelemachus and Pisistratus arrive at Menelaus’shome as he is celebrating awedding and arewarmlyentertained byMenelaus andHelen.Menelaus tellsa long storyofhis adventureson thewayhomefromTroy, including news that he got from Proteus inEgypt that Odysseus was alive on Calypso’s island.Meanwhile, back in Ithaca, the suitors learnofTele-machus’s secret departure andarenotpleased.Theyplot to ambush and kill him on his way home.Penelope also learns of her son’s departure.

Book 5: Odysseus Sets Sail for Home andGets ShipwreckedAtanother council of the gods,ZeusordersHermesto go to Calypso and tell her that she is to letOdysseus leave for Ithaca. Calypso is unhappy,but obeys the order. She offers Odysseus a chanceto become immortal and to livewith her forever, anoffer which he tactfully declines. Odysseus builds araft with tools and materials she provides and sailstoward home until Poseidon comes back fromfeasting with the Ethiopians and wrecks the raft ina storm.Odysseus, with the help of a sea goddess, iswashed safely ashore in the land of the Phaeacians.

Book 6: Nausicaa Encounters a StrangerInspired in a dream by Athena, the Princess Nau-sicaa goes with several of her maids to do theroyal laundry. The washing place is near whereOdysseus has fallen asleep, hidden in a bush.Odysseus asks Nausicaa for help; she gives himsome clothing to wear and sends him into town tofind the palace of her father, Alcinous.

Book 7: Odysseus and theKing of PhaeaciaOdysseus arrives safely at the palace and begs theassistance of King Alcinous and Queen Arete.He gives an edited version of his adventures todate but does not disclose his identity. He deftlyturns aside Alcinous’s suggestion that he shouldremain in Phaeacia and marry Nausicaa.

Book 8: ThePhaeaciansEntertainOdysseusThe Phaeacians treat Odysseus to a day of feast-ing, song, and athletic events. When Odysseusbegins weeping during Demodocus’s tale of theTrojanWar, Alcinous cuts the banquet short. Atdinner that evening, Odysseus speaks highly of

Demodocus’s skill and offers him a prime cut ofhis own portion. When Demodocus sings thestory of the Trojan Horse, Odysseus begins cry-ing again, and Alcinous asks Odysseus who he isand why stories about Troy make him cry.

Book 9: Odysseus Tells His Story—Polyphemus and the CyclopesOdysseus reveals his identity and tells his story,beginning with his departure from Troy withtwelve ships. He sacks Ismarus in Thrace, isblown off course to the land of the Lotus-Eaters,and eventually reaches the island of the Cyclopes,one-eyed giants who live in rustic anarchy.

Odysseus and the crew of his ship go toinvestigate this island and end up in Polyphe-mus’s cave. The giant rolls a stone across thecave’s entrance, and, finding strangers inside,promptly turns a couple of Odysseus’s men intohis dinner. After a similar breakfast, he goes outwith his flocks, leaving Odysseus and his menpenned in the cave. Upon Polyphemus’s return,they manage to get the giant drunk, blind him,and then sneak out of the cave under the bellies ofhis sheep and goats. As they make their escape,Odysseus unwisely reveals his true name, andPolyphemus asks his father Poseidon to avengehis injury.

Book 10: Odysseus Tells His Story—Atthe Islands of Aeolus and CirceOdysseus and his surviving crewmen now sail tothe island of Aeolus, king of the winds. Aeolusgives Odysseus a bag containing all the windsthat would prevent his reaching home. Theysail away and come close enough to Ithaca tosee the watch-fires, when Odysseus falls asleep atthe helm and his crew, thinking the bag containsa hoard of gold, untie it and release the captivewinds, which blow them right back to Aeolus’sisland.

Aeolus refuses to have anything more to dowith them. Odysseus and his crew set sail oncemore and eventually reach the land of the Laes-trygonians, who destroy all but one of his ships.The survivors sail to Circe’s island, where mostof them are promptly turned into pigs. Odysseus,forewarned by Hermes, avoids the sorceress’strap and frees his men. They remain with Circefor a year before Odysseus’s men ask to leave.Circe tells Odysseus that he must first visit theunderworld and consult with the shade of theprophet Tiresias on how best to get home.

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Book 11: Odysseus Tells His Story—Inthe House of the DeadObeying Circe’s instructions, Odysseus and hismen sail to the underworld where they make sac-rifices to Hades and Persephone and consultTiresias.WhenTiresias retires, the shades ofOdys-seus’s mother and several of his comrades at Troyappear, including those of Achilles and Agamem-non. Odysseus also witnesses the punishment ofseveral notorious offenders against the gods.

Book 12: Odysseus Tells His Story—TheSun-God’s CattleUpon his return from the underworld, Odysseusreceives sailing instructions from Circe on how toavoid the lure of the Sirens and how to get pastthe monster Scylla and the whirlpool Charybdis.Above all, Circe warns Odysseus not to harm thecattle of the sun-god on the island of Thrinacia.Cast upon Thrinacia by a fierce storm and out ofprovisions, Odysseus’s men disobey him andslaughter someof thecattle.The sun-godcomplainsto Zeus, who destroys the ship with a thunderbolt.Only Odysseus survives, and he drifts to Calypso’sisland by hanging on to the ship’s mast. This endsOdysseus’s story as told to the Phaeacians.

Book 13: Return to Ithaca and theStone ShipThePhaeacians landOdysseus and all his treasureson Ithaca while he himself is deep asleep. Athena,in disguise, meets Odysseus, and he tries to trickher, without success, with a false story about him-self. She reveals her identity and tells him howmuch she cares for him, and they plot a stratagemfor dealing with Penelope’s suitors. After stowingOdysseus’s treasure safely in a cave, Athena dis-guises Odysseus as an ancient beggar and sendshim on his way. Poseidon, angry that the Phaea-cians have helped Odysseus get back to Ithaca,turns their ship into a huge stone, visible toonlookers on shore and rooted to the sea-bottom,as it sails into harbor on its return voyage.

Book 14: The Loyal SwineherdOdysseus makes his way to the dwelling ofEumaeus, a swineherd who has remained loyal tohis long-absent employer. Odysseus, still in dis-guise, entertains Eumaeus with some ‘‘lying tales’’about himself.

Book 15: Telemachus Heads for HomeTelemachus takes his leave ofHelen andMenelausand tactfully evades Nestor’s further hospitality.

Telemachus offers passage to the seer Theocly-menus, who is fleeing vengeance for a kinsman’sdeath. Back in Ithaca, Eumaeus tells Odysseus thestory of his life. Telemachus evades the suitors’ambush and sends Theoclymenus home with afriend, as he intends to visit Eumaeus in the coun-try before returning to the palace and the suitors.

Book 16: Father and Son ReunitedTelemachus goes to Eumaeus’s hut, where Odys-seus reveals himself to his son and impresses onhim the need for secrecy and deception if they areto overcome the suitors. Meanwhile, the ship thesuitors had sent out to ambush Telemachusreturns, and the suitors try without success tocome upwith an alternative plan to get rid of him.

Book 17: A Beggar at the GateTelemachus returns to the palace and speaks withhismother.Eumaeus bringsOdysseus to the palace.On the way they encounter the goatherd Melan-thius, an ally of the suitors, who insults Odysseus.As Odysseus enters the palace, an old hunting dogrecognizes him and dies on the spot. Most of thesuitors treatOdysseuswithat least grudging respect,but Antinous throws a footstool at him. Penelopeasks Eumaeus to arrange a meeting with the newvisitor.

Book 18: The Two Beggar-KingsOdysseus is insulted by Irus, a professional beggarwhomthe suitors favor.The twomen fight,much tothe amusement of the suitors, andOdysseus quicklysubdues Irus. Penelope comes to the hall to extractpresents fromthe suitors and toannounceher inten-tion of remarrying.Odysseus is insulted by themaidMelantho and Eurymachus, one of the leading sui-tors, who throws another footstool at him.

Book 19: Penelope Interrogates Her GuestOdysseus and his son take all the weapons fromthe great hall, assisted by Athena.Melantho againinsults Odysseus. Penelope speaks to the beggar,who claims to knowOdysseus and tells her that heis nearby and will be home quickly. She does notbelieve him but orders his old nurse, Eurycleia, towash him. The nurse recognizes Odysseus by ascar he received as a young man and is sworn tosecrecy. Penelope details the trial of the bow bywhich she will choose her new husband on thefollowing day.

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Book 20: Things Begin to Look Bad forthe SuitorsOdysseus lays awakeplotting revenge untilAthenaputs him to sleep.On the next day, the loyal oxherdPhiloetius arrives at the palace, where Odysseus isagain insulted by one of the suitors, Ctesippus,who throws an ox-foot at him. The suitors alllaugh at this, which Theoclymenus interprets as asign that they are all marked for death.

Book 21: The Great Bow of OdysseusPenelope fetches Odysseus’s hunting bow andannounces the test: She will marry the man whocan string the bow and shoot an arrow throughthe rings on twelve axe-heads set in a line in theground. Odysseus reveals himself to his two loyalservants and enlists their help in getting revengeon the suitors. None of the suitors is able to stringthe bow; Telemachus is on the point of succeedingwhen Odysseus stops him. Telemachus, by prear-rangement with his father, sends his mother fromthehall and gives the bow toOdysseus, who stringsit and shoots an arrow through the axes.

Book 22: The Death of the SuitorsWithhis next arrow,Odysseus shootsAntinous andannounces his true identity to the rest of the suitors.Odysseus, Telemachus, Philoetius, and Eumaeus,assisted by the disguised Athena, kill the suitors.When all the suitors are dead, the disloyal maidsare hanged, and Melanthius is punished. The loyalservantsbegin toclean thepalaceafter the slaughter.

Book 23: The ReunionOld Eurycleia wakes Penelope with the news thather husband has returned and destroyed the sui-tors. Penelope refuses to believe it.WhenOdysseusanswers her trick question about their marriagebed, she acceptshimasherhusband, and they retireto bed after making plans to deal with the relativesof the suitorswhomOdysseushas justkilled.Beforethey sleep, Odysseus tells his wife his true story.

Book 24: Peace at LastThe suitors’ shades arrive in Hades and tell Aga-memnon and Achilles of Odysseus’s triumphantrevenge on them for their destruction of his estate.Odysseus goes tomeet his aged father Laertes in thecountry and, after telling him another ‘‘lying tale,’’reveals himself to his father. The suitors’ relativesarrive at that point, seeking vengeance for the deathof their kinsmen. Athena and Zeus intervene in thefighting that ensues and, after a few of the suitors’relatives are killed, Athena makes peace.

CHARACTERS

AchillesSon of the mortal Peleus and the sea goddessThetis, Achilles was the best warrior at the siegeof Troy. Odysseus encounters his shade (spirit) inthe underworld in Book 11 while waiting for theseer Tiresias to tell him how he is to return homeafter being delayed for ten years.

AchilleusSee Achilles

AeacidesSee Achilles

AeolusThe son ofHippotas, Aeolus is beloved of the godsand Zeus put him in charge of the winds. He andhis family (six sons married to six daughters) liveon Aeolia, a floating island. After listening toOdysseus’s tales of Troy, he agrees to help andmakes Odysseus a present of a bag containingall the adverse winds that could blow him offhis proper course home. Unfortunately, Odys-seus’s men untie the knot, thinking they will findgold in the bag, and the winds blow them back toAeolia. Aeolus casts them out, saying he has nodesire tohelp anyonewho is soobviously cursedbythe gods.

AgamemnonSon of Atreus, brother of Menelaus, and king ofMycenae, Agamemnon was the commander ofthe Achaean forces at Troy. Odysseus encountershis shade in the underworld while waiting for theseer Tiresias to tell him how to get home after tenyears of wandering.

AiasSee Ajax

Ajax (Oilean, the Lesser)Son of Oileus and leader of the Locrians at Troy,Ajax is shipwrecked on his way home after thewar. He boasts of having escaped the sea in spiteof the gods—and is subsequently drowned byPoseidon. Odysseus encounters his shade in theunderworld in Book 11.

Ajax (Telamonian, the GreaterSon of Telamon and grandson of Aeacus (whowas also grandfather of Achilles), Ajax was oneof the bravest and strongest fighters at Troy.

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Odysseus encounters the shade of Ajax in theunderworld and apologizes for the outcome oftheir contest at Achilles’s funeral games, but Ajax,angry with Odysseus even after death, refuses tospeak to the man he believes had unfairly beatenhim in life.

Ajax the GreaterSee Ajax (Telamonian, the Greater)

Ajax the LesserSee Ajax (Oilean, the Lesser)

AkhilleusSee Achilles

AlcinousSon of Nausithous, husband of Arete, and fatherof Nausicaa and Laodamas, Alcinous, whosename means sharp-witted or brave-witted, isking of Phaeacia and a grandson of Poseidon.Homer depicts him as a kind, generous, andnoble man, eager to help the stranger and puthim at ease. He suggests that Odysseus shouldstay in Phaeacia and marry his daughter.

AntinoosSee Antinous

AntinousSon of Eupithes, Antinous (whose name literallymeans anti-mind and could be translated asmind-less) is a bold, ambitious, and obnoxious suitorfor Penelope’s hand.

AphroditeAphrodite is theGreek goddess of love. Accordingto Homer, she is the daughter of Zeus and Dione.She ismarried, though not faithful, toHephaestus,god of fire and smithcraft.

ApolloThe son of Zeus and Leto, and twin brother ofArtemis, Apollo is the god of archery, prophecy,music,medicine, light, and youth.As is frequentlyseen in the Odyssey, plagues and other diseases,and sometimes a peaceful death in old age areoften explained as being the result of ‘‘gentlearrows’’ shot by Apollo (for men) or by his sisterArtemis (for women).

AreteNiece and wife of Alcinous and mother of Nau-sicaa, Arete is queen of the Phaeacians. Her namemeans virtue or excellence in Greek.

ArtemisDaughter of Zeus and Leto, twin sister of Apollo,Artemis is a virgin goddess of the hunt, the moon,and, in some traditions, of childbirth and theyoung.As is frequently seen in theOdyssey, plaguesand other diseases, and sometimes a peaceful deathin old age, are often explained as being the result of‘‘gentle arrows’’ shot by Artemis (for women) or byher brother Apollo (for men).

AthenaAthena is the daughter of Zeus and M�etis, whoZeus (following in the tradition of his own father,Cronus) swallowed when it was revealed that shewould someday bear a son who would be lord ofheaven (and thus usurp Zeus’s place). She wasborn, fully grown and in armor, from the headof Zeus after Hephaestus (or, in some traditions,Prometheus) split it open with an axe.

AtheneSee Athena

AtreidesSee Agamemnon

AtridesSee Agamemnon

BriseisBriseis is the war prize given to Achilles after hisattack onLyrnessus during the TrojanWar.WhenAgamemnon has to give up Chryseis, he takesBriseis as compensation, and this action instigatesthe quarrel between him and Achilles.

CalypsoDaughter of Atlas, who holds the world upon hisshoulders, Calypso (whose name is related to theGreek verb to hide and which might therefore betranslated as concealer) is a goddess who lives onthe island of Ogygia. She has fallen in love withOdysseus during the seven years he has lived onher island and proposes to make him immortal,not a gift given lightly.

CirceDaughter of Helios (the sun-god) and Perse, andsister ofAeetes, the king ofColchiswho soplagued

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Jason and theArgonauts, Circe is aminor goddesswho ‘‘speaks with the speech of mortals.’’ She isalso a powerful enchantress. Her specialty lies inturning men into pigs. Yet once she recognizesOdysseus and swears an oath not to harm him,she becomes the most charming of hostesses, somuch so that Odysseus and his men remain withher an entire year.

CtesippusCtesippus is one of the suitors for Penelope. Hisname literally means horse-getter, so he mayliterally be a horse-thief.

DemodocusThe blind bard, or poet, of the Phaeacian court,traditionally, Demodocus has been taken as repre-sentingHomer, but not all scholars accept this idea.

DemodokosSee Demodocus

EumaeusSon of Ctesius, who was king of two cities on theisland of Syria (not to be confusedwith theMiddleEastern country of the same name), Eumaeus waskidnapped at a young age by one of his father’sserving women and taken by Phoenician traders,who sold him to Laertes, Odysseus’s father. Odys-seus’s mother, Anticleia, raised him together withher own daughter, and then sent him to the coun-try when the daughter was married. His namemightmean something like one who seeks the good.

EumaiosSee Eumaeus

EurycleiaEurycleia is the long-time servant of Odysseus’sfamily. Odysseus’s father Laertes bought her inher youth for twenty oxen, a significant price. Shewas Odysseus’s nurse and later the nurse of Tele-machus. In her old age, she attends Penelope.

EurylochosSee Eurylochus

EurylochusA companion of Odysseus, Eurylochus is the onewho ties Odysseus to the mast to keep him fromresponding—fatally—to the song of the Sirens,and it is he who leads the first group of men toCirce’s palace, thenhas to report that theyhavenotcomebackout andbegsOdysseus not tomake him

go back. Eurylochus eventually turns onOdysseusand refuses to obey him on Thrinacia, instead urg-ing the rest of the men to slaughter the sun-god’scattle.

EurylokhosSee Eurylochus

EurymachosSee Eurymachus

EurymachusSon of Polybus, Eurymachus is described as the‘‘leading candidate’’ for Penelope’s hand. Hisname means wide-fighting.

Eurymachus is arrogant, disrespectful, hypo-critical, cowardly, and abusive. He is the secondof the suitors to die by Odysseus’s hand. Odys-seus’s words to him, after Eurymachus offers tomake good on the damages the suitors have doneto his household in his absence, are virtually thesame as Achilles’s words in response to Agamem-non’s offer of a ransom for Briseis in Book 9 ofthe Iliad.

EurymakhosSee Eurymachus

HelenThe wife of Menelaus, Helen went, apparentlywillingly, with Paris to Troy. The resulting warformed the background for Homer’s other epicpoem, the Iliad.

One might have expected Menelaus to beangry with Helen for running off to Troy, andshewith him for having dragged her back. Instead,Homer describes in thema couple enjoyingmaritalbliss: Helen and Menelaus are to all appearancesdeeply in love with one another and quite happy tobe back in Sparta among their people and theirpossessions.

KalypsoSee Calypso

KirkeSee Circe

KtesipposSee Ctesippus

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LaertesSon of Arcesius (and thus a grandson of Zeus),husband of Anticleia, and father of Odysseus,Laertes was one of those (along with Menoetius,father of Patroclus; Peleus, father of Achilles; andTelamon, father of Ajax the Greater) who sailedwith Jason on theArgo in the quest for theGoldenFleece, according to pseudo-Apollodorus.

By the time the Odyssey begins, however,Laertes is old and worn by care and grief. Hiswife has died, his son has been absent for twentyyears, first at the Trojan War and then on hiswanderings home from it. Laertes has retired toa country estate, where he lives more like one ofthe servants than the owner.

MelanthiosSee Melanthius

MelanthiusSon of Dolius,Melanthius is Odysseus’s goatherd.During his master’s long absence, Melanthius hasbecome friendly with the suitors of Odysseus’swife Penelope. He insults Odysseus as Eumaeusis bringing him into town and again on the morn-ing of the day that Odysseus kills the suitors. Heattempts to bring armor from the storeroom forthe suitors once Odysseus has revealed himself butis caught in the act by Eumaeus and imprisonedthere until the end of the fighting. He is severelymutilated (and presumably dies of his wounds) byTelemachus, Eumaeus, and Philoetius.

MelanthoMelantho is the disloyal servant in the royal houseat Ithaca. She is verbally abusive to Odysseuswhen he is disguised as a beggar, and she becomesthe lover of one of the suitors.

MenelaosSee Menelaus

MenelausSonofAtreus andbrotherofAgamemnon,Mene-laus is kingof Sparta and the husbandofHelen. IntheOdyssey, he shines as an example of the happyhusband and father, the good ruler, and the per-fect host.

NausicaaDaughter of Alcinous and Arete, Nausicaa is aPhaeacian princess. The night before Odysseus isdiscovered in the bushes, she dreams of her mar-riage. After Athena makes Odysseus look more

regal, Nausicaa seems to think that he wouldmake a suitable husband, a sentiment her fatherechoes. Her name, as with many of the Phaea-cian characters, is related to the Greek word forship, naus.

NausikaaSee Nausicaa

NestorThe only surviving son of Neleus, Nestor is theelderly king of Pylos, where it is said that he hasreigned for three generations. Nestor’s role is thatof the elder statesman and advisor.

OdysseusOdysseus is the son of Laertes and Anticleia, hus-band of Penelope, father of Telemachus, andabsent king of Ithaca. This epic chronicles histen-year journey home to Ithaca from Troy.Odysseus is a loyal husband, loving father, anda true hero who wants nothing more than toreturn to his home and his loved ones. To achievethis goal, he even turns down an easy chance atimmortality.

OileanSee Ajax (Oilean, the Lesser)

PelidesSee Achilles

PenelopePenelope is the daughter of Icarius, wife of Odys-seus, and mother of Telemachus. Fidelity to herhusband, devotion to her son, care for the house-hold, and resourcefulness on a parwithOdysseus’sown, these are the characteristics ofHomer’s Pene-lope. She is a realist; she knows there is almost nohope that Odysseus will come back after anabsence of twenty years, but she will not denythat last bit of hope its chance, which sets herapart from the suitors and the faithless servants.Her test of Odysseus’s identity bymentioning theirmarriage bed proves that she is the equal of themaster of schemes himself.

PhiloetiusA longtime servant of Odysseus, Philoetius man-ages the herds for the household. He remains loyalto his absentmaster; he hopesOdysseuswill returnbut thinks it unlikely.

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PhiloitiosSee Philoetius

PolyphemosSee Polyphemus

PolyphemusA son of Poseidon and one of the Cyclopes, a raceof one-eyed giants living on an island which isusually thought to be Sicily, Polyphemus is pre-sented as amember of a lawless race that does notacknowledge the gods, but who also lives in anarea that provides for all their needs withouteffort on their part.

PoseidonSon of Cronus and Rhea, and brother of Zeus andHades, Poseidon is the godof the seas, earthquakes,and horses. Poseidon is stubborn and prone toholding a grudge, but not entirely unreasonable.

TeiresiasSee Tiresias

TelamonianSee Ajax (Telamonian, the Greater)

TelemachosSee Telemachus

TelemachusSon of Odysseus and Penelope, Telemachus is stilla baby when Odysseus leaves for Troy. He is nowgrown to manhood, and his home island is besetby civil disorder and his family household besiegedby men who do not want him to assume thethrone. Telemachus is rather shy and diffident.He has no memories of his resourceful father touse as a model and no strong male figure to lookup to or to show him the ways of a ruler.

TiresiasTiresias is a famous prophet from the Greek cityof Thebes, the son of Everes and the nymphChariclo. Tiresias is the only person in the under-world who has any current knowledge about theworld above: Everyone else knows only what hashappened up to the time of his death, unless newscan be obtained from a new arrival.

TritogeneiaSee Athena

ZeusSon of Cronus and Rhea, brother and husbandof Hera, brother of Poseidon and Hades, Zeus isgod of the sky and clouds, of storms and thun-der, and the ruler of the other gods.

THEMES

Creative and Self-protective DeceptionIt could be said that creativity or imagination isOdysseus’s strongest trait. He is not mentioned byname for the first twenty lines of the poem, but adescription appears at the end of the very first lineof the poem in the word polutropon, which literallymeans of many twists. In modern usage, this wordmight be interpreted as shifty, except that Homerdoes not appear to mean anything negative bythe word, merely descriptive—Odysseus is ratherdevious, but he has to be in order to survive.

It should be no surprise, then, to discover thatOdysseus is beloved of Athena, who is the goddessof creativity and imagination. She and Odysseushave much in common, as she remarks in Book 13(XIII.296-99), including a joy in ‘‘weaving schemes’’(XIII.386).

A large part of Odysseus’s creative energy ischanneled into the weaving of deceptions for thepeople around him. In fact,Athena givesOdysseuswhat is either a left-handed compliment or a mildreproach in Book 13 when she says: ‘‘Wily-mindedwretch, never weary of tricks, you wouldn’t evendream, not even in your own native land, of givingup your wily ways, or the telling of the clever talesthat are dear to you from the very root of yourbeing’’ (XIII.293-95).Yet it is important to remem-ber that Odysseus only tells such clever or thieving(the word can have both meanings) tales becausehemust; hewaits until he is certain of theirmotivesto tell the Phaeacians his true identity, but he doessowhen pressed. Only when hemust remain anon-ymous to stay alive or to further some ultimatepurpose does he continue a deception beyond thefirst moment when it could be dropped.

HeroismOdysseus is a legitimate hero.His reputation fromthe Iliad, as recounted in the Odyssey, would beenough to establish that quite apart from the closerelationship he has with Athena and, to a lesserdegree, with Hermes. The gods only help thosewho are worthy; after all, none of the gods lifts a

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finger to help the suitors who are only gettingwhatthey deserve.

There is a contrast between Odysseus and theheroes in the Iliad, none of whom would likelyhave endured the kind of insults and abuses thatOdysseus takes without a whimper from the sui-tors, nor would they have considered concealingtheir identity, even to further a noble goal such asthe destruction of the suitors. However, the heroesof the Iliad were locked into an almost ritual pat-tern of behavior that is suited only to war and thebattlefield. Odysseus has his place in that heroicenvironment as well, but in the Odyssey, Homerdepicts what it means to be a hero off the battle-field as well as on it. Odysseus faces circumstancesthat are enormously different from those he has to

contend with during the war, and he responds tothem in an appropriately heroic fashion. Homerbroadens the definition of a hero in these ways.

Human ConditionThe question of what it means to be a human isan important theme in the Odyssey. The poemprovides various examples of human beings:good, bad, young, old, acting along and actingin groups, living on earth and as spirits in theunderworld. Each of these types is an integralpart of the story of Odysseus and his effort todiscover the essence of the human condition.

There are two incidents in the epic that high-light the importance of this theme for Homer.They are Odysseus’s refusal of Calypso’s offer to

TOPICS FORFURTHER

STUDY

� In a speech to his wife in Book 19, Odysseusas the beggar tells Penelope that ‘‘Odysseuswould have been home long ago, but he feltin his spirit that it would be better to go allabout the world collecting possessions’’(282–84). The Greek word chr�emata in line284 can be translated as possessions or it canmeanmoney or other valuables, but its literalmeaning is things that are useful or needful.What sorts of useful or needful things doesOdysseus collect on his wanderings? Assignpairs of students to sections of the poem toexamine the text for things Odysseus col-lected. Make a list on the board. Considercarefully Odysseus’s character as portrayedby Homer. Do you think he was motivatedby greed, necessity, or opportunity?

� Search online for a definition of hero. Matcha definition to a story about hero in sports,in the military, in the role of first responder,or as an ordinary citizen responding in anunusual or dangerous incident. Prepare awritten report with the definition, the story(with picture if available), and a paragraphof comparison to the values of Odysseus.What sorts of differences do you find, and

which set of values fits your personal defini-

tion of a hero? Include your answers in your

essay.

� What role do the gods play in the Odyssey?

Compare and contrast this role with the role

of the divine in a contemporary religious

tradition (your own religion or another that

interests you). Share your insights in a class

discussion or in an essay.

� Do an online search on the term cultural

hospitality and compare in a written report

the concept of hospitality of one or two other

cultures to that of the Greeks in this epic.

� Put together a PowerPoint presentation in

which you explain to your classmates the

circuitous homeward route taken by Odys-

seus. Use art images and current and ancient

maps to help your classmates visualize the

journey. You might consider including infor-

mation about how this trip might be taken in

modern times, for example, by airplane or

ship, and show current images of ports and

airports in the identifiable places Odysseus

reaches.

O d y s s e y



make him immortal (V.215-24), and Achilles’sreply to Odysseus’s attempt at consolation in theunderworld when Achilles says that he wouldrather be a poor servant in life than to haverank among the dead. To be human and to bealive, Homer implies, is to matter, to be impor-tant. The dead in the underworld, like the godson Olympus, may have a kind of existence, but itis ultimately an empty one.

Love and LoyaltyLove and loyalty are two important aspects of thehuman condition and also make an importanttheme in the Odyssey. The loyalty of Eumaeus,Eurycleia, and Philoetius, for example, standsin direct contrast to the behavior of Melantho,Melanthius, and the suitors, for which they areeventually punished. Helen and Menelaus areclearly in love, and there can be little doubt that

Odysseus and Penelope feel much the same way,despite Odysseus’s philandering on his way homeand Penelope’s testing of her husband when hefinally reveals his true identity.

Love in the Odyssey is neither a tempestuouspassion (as it sometimes seems to be in the Iliad, atleast where Helen and Paris are concerned) nor adeathless romance as it would become in the laysof theMiddle Ages. Love in theOdyssey is quieterand deeper. Odysseus and Penelope may not havea grand passion any longer, but the love they dohave proves their relationship is secure; it is whatpulls Odysseus home and what keeps Penelopehoping for his return.

Order and DisorderFrom the very beginning of the poem, there areindications that there is supposed to be an orderto life and those who ignore or threaten that

According to Greek mythology, Odysseus encountered the Laestrygonians during his wanderings. Thiswall painting, dating to the first century BCE, shows the Laestrygonians throwing boulders anddestroying the ships of Odysseus. (� Lebrecht Music and Arts Photo Library / Alamy)

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order will be punished for it. The main compo-nent of that ordered system is xenia, the laws ofhospitality. In a world without regular places fortravelers to lodge and where neither police norother international law-enforcement bodies exist,refusing shelter to a traveler or taking advantageof a guest under one’s roof (or, as with the suitors,taking advantage of one’s host) constitutes a seri-ous breakdown in moral and civic order. Hencethe laws of hospitality are raised to the level of areligious duty and to violate those laws merits theultimate punishment.

But there are other indications of disorder inthe poem as well. At the beginning of Book 2, forexample, the assembly on Ithaca has not met sinceOdysseus left for Troy. This breakdown in civilorder may have contributed to the suitors’ abilityto flout the laws of xenia for almost four years.Surely, if there had been any kind of regular func-tioning government inOdysseus’s absence, itwouldhave put an end to their degradations, and Odys-seus would not have had to slaughter more than ahundred people on his return home. The implica-tion seems clear that rules of social conduct matterin theHomericworld and that even small violationsof those rules can have disastrous consequences.

STYLE

StructureIn general, the Odyssey is more technicallyadvanced than the Iliad. The flashbacks thatseemed so awkward in the earlier poem arehandled much more subtly; for example, theaction jumps seamlessly from one place toanother even in the middle of a book and is itselfmuch more lively than the formalized battlescenes in the Iliad. The epic focuses on the returntrip, so the use of flashbacks seems to underscorethe role of memory in the characters’ presentexperience. Those returning from war rememberthe battle scenes; those left behind remember themoments of departure; those waiting rememberhow long it has been since they were reunitedwith loved ones. Narrative in this epic is pegged,in this way, to the function of memory, to theway the narrator can recall and relive past expe-rience in the act of relating it in the present.

MeterEnglish meter involves patterns of stressed andunstressed syllables. Greek meter, by contrast,

involves patterns of long and short syllableswhere, as a general rule, two short syllables equalone long syllable. Greek poetry does not rhymeeither, although it does make use of alliterationand assonance (repeated use of the same or similarconsonant patterns and vowel patterns, respec-tively) in order to string words together.

The Odyssey is written in dactylic hexam-eters, which set the standard form for epic poetry;in fact, this particular meter is sometimes referredto as epic meter or epic hexameter. Hexametermeans that per line there are six feet (a unit like ameasure in a line of music); dactylic refers to theparticular metrical pattern of each foot—in thiscase, the basic pattern is one long syllable followedby two shorts, although variations on that basicpattern are allowed. (Dactylic compares to waltztime in music.) The final foot in each line, forexample, is almost always a spondee (two longsyllables, instead of one long and two shorts).The meter is sometimes varied to suit the actionbeing described, using more dactyls when describ-ing subjects that move quickly (horses galloping,for example), and more spondees when describingsubjects the move slowly or are sad.

SimilesThe epic similes so common in the Iliad are usedmuchmore sparingly in theOdyssey, whichmakesthem all the more striking when they do appear.The simile is a comparison of an unfamiliar sub-ject and a familiar one. The unfamiliar subject isthe called the tenor and the subject to which it iscompared is the vehicle. The comparison is madeexplicit by the useof likeor as. The epic simile thenuses so to return to the tenor of the comparison.The simile is a literary device that slows the actionand emphasizes a particular moment or feeling.At the beginning of Book 20, the following twosimiles are used to describe Odysseus as he plotsthe downfall of the scheming maids and the sui-tors, respectively:

The heart inside him growled low with rage, as a

bitchmountingoverherweak,defenseless puppies

growls, facing a stranger, bristling for a show-

down—so he growled from his depths, hackles

rising at their outrage. (XX.13-16, Fagles)

But he himself kept tossing, turning, intent as a

cook before some white-hot blazing fire who

rolls his sizzling sausage back and forth, packed

with fat and blood—keen to broil it quickly,

tossing, turning it, this way, that way—so he

cast about. (XX.24-26, Fagles)

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These similes convey a sense of Odysseus’s feel-

ing at this moment. The first compares the hero’s

unknown feeling to the well-known growl of a

female dog over her puppies; the second com-

pares the way Odysseus refines his plan of attack

to the well-known image of a cook moving saus-

age back and forth over a flame with his fork,

preparing it for dinner. The hero’s emotional

state and the way his plan develops in his mind

are conveyed through the known subjects to

which they are compared.

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

The Bronze AgeThe Trojan War and its aftermath took placearound 1250 BCE, the date of the wealthy burialsfound by Heinrich Schliemann (1822–1890) inGrave Circle A at Mycenae in 1873. For thisreason, the period is sometimes also called theMycenaean era. This was a time of relative stabil-ity, though not, of course, without its conflicts,wars, and raids. The dominant powers in the

COMPARE&

CONTRAST

� Late Bronze Age: Piracy is well-established,and ship-building evolves as a means oftransporting soldiers who intend to rob dis-tant coastal communities.

Iron Age:Naval forces are an important partof conducting warfare; however, the Phoe-nicians increasingly control trade in theMediterranean Sea.

Today:According to the International Mar-itime Bureau, incidents of piracy worldwidein 2009 surpass four hundred.

� Late Bronze Age: Mycenean pottery isrefined and ornate. It depicts figures in localdress and soldiers armed for battle.

Iron Age: Geometric design in pottery glaze

work develops, some ofwhich shows abstract

human figures involved in mourning the

dead.

Today: Geometric-style vases from the eighth

century BCE are displayed in many museums

around theworld, oneofwhich is theNational

Archeological Museum in Athens.

� Late Bronze Age:Writing is known, although

mainly in cumbersome, syllabic forms such as

Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Mycenaean Lin-

ear A and B scripts, or the Hittite/Akkadian

cuneiform. Literacy is probably restricted to

the highest levels of the aristocracy and a

professional class of scribes, bureaucrats, or

diplomats.

Iron Age: Literacy in the Greek-speakingworld begins to be rediscovered using a differ-ent alphabet, in which each letter represents aparticular sound and not an entire syllable.Literacy is restricted to the upper classes andsome professionals, such as rhapsodes (thosewho recite poetry) and some artists.

Today: The vast majority of people, approx-imately 82 percent, are at least able to readand write well enough to conduct their ownbusiness affairs. In developed countries, theliteracy rate is as high as 98 percent; however,in some underdeveloped countries only 25percent of the people can read and write.

� Late Bronze Age: Sacked cities are pillaged

and destroyed, often burned to the ground,

the victors assuming the city is erased from

human history.

Iron Age: Many cities are built on the ruinsof earlier communities because their locationis valuable for various reasons.

Today: Archeological research finds evidence

in layers as certain sites are unearthed. Arche-

ologists have determined that between 3000

BCE and 500 CE, at least nine separate cities

existed on the site of Troy.

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eastern Mediterranean were the Hittites in thecentral part of what is now Turkey, the Egyptiansin what is now called the Middle East, and theMycenaean kings in Greece and the surroundingislands.

The Bronze Age is so named because some-time between about 3000 and 1200 BCE and atdifferent times during this period in differentlocations, human cultures began combining cop-per with tin and arsenic to form the alloy bronze,a metal that was stronger than pure copper andreasonably easy to smelt and use to create tools,weapons, and other articles. Initially, copper wasprobably found on the surface in nuggets, butgradually people discovered that where many ofthese nuggets were found there was more of thematerial buried, and in this way, mining evolved.

Trade flourished, quite surprisingly given theuncertainties of shipping and other means of trans-portation, together with a relatively low level oftechnological advancement (at least when consid-ered bymodern standards).DistinctiveMycenaeanpottery, whether as art pieces intended for displayand ceremonial use or for transporting trade goods

such as oil, grain, or perfume, is found all over theMediterraneanbasin in large quantities throughoutthis period.

Modern archeologists have determined thatthe ancient city of Ilium (later called Troy) wassacked repeatedly. It was a rich, fortressed com-munity, powerful because its location allowed it tocontrol the southern approach to the Hellespont(Dardanelles). Neighboring and distant kingdomsenvied its dominance and wanted to steal its riches.Thus, repeatedly, the ancient city was attacked,sacked, and burned. These conflicts continued formany years, and robbery, rather than reclaimingthe abducted Helen was the motive.

The Iron AgeBeginning around the eleventh century BCE, theGreeks began to use iron in place of bronze, tocremate their dead as opposed to burying themintact, and to establish colonies along the westcoast of what is now Turkey. By Homer’s day,roughly the middle of the eighth century BCE,these trends were well-established.

Ruins of the ancient city of Troy, outside Canakkale, Turkey (Image copyright turkishblue, 2010. Used under license from

Shutterstock.com)

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Writing was rediscovered using a new alpha-

bet borrowed from the Phoenicians, and foreign

trade improved, helped in no small part by the

colonies along the Ionian coast which, while typi-

cally independent of their mother cities, neverthe-

less tended to remain on friendly terms with them.

The population was again on the rise, which

spurred another wave of colonization, this time

chiefly toward the west, to Sicily, parts of Italy,

and the south of France.

At least on the Greek mainland, the era of

kings rapidly drew to a close. By the beginning

of the eighth century, the nobles had taken the

reins of power from the kings almost every-

where and were ruling over family groups or

tribes in what would come to be called the

polis, or city-state.

Largely because of the decorations found on

pottery from the period, this era has come to be

known as the Geometric period, but increasing

regularity was a feature of more than just the

decorative arts. In this period the beginnings of

aGreek national identity emerge, prompting and/

or prompted by the founding of the Olympic

games and the dissemination of Homer’s works,

among other factors. There is also evidence that

more coordinated military tactics were beginning

to be used.

Religious practices, if not beliefs, also seem to

have begun aprocess of standardization.While the

Homeric heroes sometimes go to specific places for

religious observances, themajority seem tobe fam-

ily- or group-centered rituals that take place wher-

ever the family or group may happen to be at the

moment of the ritual, and archaeological evidence

from the Bronze Age tends to confirm this view.

Formal altars, like the one at the fountain

described in Book 17, are known from the Bronze

Age, but temples, buildings specifically set aside for

formal public worship, have not been identified in

the archaeological record much before the ninth

century BCE and become much more frequent

thereafter.

After Homer’s day, while the population,

wealth, commerce, and industry of Greece were

generally on the rise, the political pendulum

swung back and forth from more aristocratic

and democratic models to varying forms of one-

man rule until just before the dawn of the Golden

Age in the fifth century BCE.

CRITICAL OVERVIEW

The critical reputation of the Odyssey is perhapsbest demonstrated by noting that it is generally

regarded as one of the first works of true literaturein Western culture. This is significant not only

because the poem stands near the head of the list,as it were, but also because it had to beat out a fair

amount of competition to achieve that status.

By themiddle of the sixth century BCE, aroundthe same timeas thePeisistratids inAthensordered

the first standard edition of Homer’s works to bemade, there were at least six other epic poems

treating various parts of the Trojan War story.Most of these were fairly short, but the Cypria,

which covered everything from the decision of the

gods to cause the war through Agamemnon’squarrel with Achilles that begins Homer’s work,

was at least half as longas the Iliad.Unlike the Iliadand theOdyssey, however, noneof theotherpoems

in this epic cycle has survived except in fragmentaryquotations in the works of later authors.

Certainly by the beginning of the sixth cen-tury, and possibly late in the seventh, there wasalready a group of poet/performers calling them-

selves the Homeridae (meaning Sons of Homer).This group may have been the forerunner of the

rhapsodes, trained singers who, while they didapparently compose and improvise works of

their own, were best known for reciting Homer’s

poetry. At least on Plato’s authority, the rhaps-odes seem to have begun taking liberties with the

poems, which may have led the Peisistratids tohave the official text written down for the judges

at the Great Panathenaia (a religious festival inhonor of Athena held every four years) that

included a contest for the rhapsodes that required

them, presumably in shifts and over several days,to recite the whole of the Iliad and the Odyssey.

For most people, those public performanceswere probably their major form of exposure to

Homer’s work. For the educated class, however,knowing one’s Homer quickly became the sign of

culture and refinement. Homer is mentioned by

name at least six hundred times in survivingGreek literature, in works of history, philosophy,

religion, and law. In his Poetics, Aristotle holdsHomer up as the ‘‘supreme poet in the serious

style’’ and the forerunner of both tragedy andcomedy. Herodotus, in his Histories, even credits

Homer, along with his near contemporary Hes-

iod, with being the one who gave Greek religion

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its standard forms: the names, spheres and func-tions, and descriptions and descent of the gods.

The one dissenting voice in the ancient worldseems to have been that of Plato. Although hequotes Homer on more than one occasion, andeven lampoons the rhapsodes and their beautifica-tion or embellishment of the standard text in hisdialogue Ion, in theRepublic, his lengthydiscussionof the ideal state and the education of its leaders,Plato dismisses Homer as a mere imitator andexcludes him (and poets generally) from his educa-tional program.

Homerwas frequently imitated in the classicalworld, whether by the authors of the other poemsin the epic cycle or lampooned as he was by Aris-tophanes in several of his plays (especially TheBirds and The Clouds), yet his work was neverequaled. Roman literature in particular owes agreat deal to Homer, and to theOdyssey in partic-ular: Later authors dated the beginnings of theirnational literature to a translation of the Odysseyinto Latin made by the slave Livius Andronicusaround 220 BCE), and the great Roman nationalepic the Aeneid not only uses Homer’s epic hex-ameter line, it consciously imitates themes andevents from both the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Interest in Homer continued well into theChristian era, as seen by Macrobius’s Saturnalia(dated to the early part of the fifth century CE),when educatedRomans still knew their Greek andspent an evening discussing the relative merits ofHomer’s treatment of the Troy story in compar-ison to Virgil’s. With the fall of Rome in 455 CE),however, Homer and his works fell into obscurityfor roughly one thousand years, until Renaissancescholars rediscovered classical texts and learned toreadGreek. According to Philip Ford in his article‘‘Homer in the French Renaissance,’’ although thename Homer was associated with the ideal of aninspired poet, it was not until Petrarch requested atranslation and read Homer’s two epics that inter-est was renewed in the works.

The story of Odysseus received somewhatless attention than did the story of the TrojanWar, but it never entirely died out. The Frenchmoralist Francois de Fenelon turned the story ofTelemachus into a Christian fable with his 1699publication of Les Aventures de Telemaque, andthe Spanish poet Pedro Calderon did the samewith the story of Odysseus and Circe.

Interest in Homer and his works was revivedin the eighteenth century when F. A. Wolf firstproposed the Homeric question, regarding who

wrote what and when. Johann Wolfgang vonGoethe started, but did not finish, a romantic trag-edy about Odysseus and Nausicaa. It is thoughtthat Milton was influenced by Homer in compos-ing Paradise Lost, and Homer certainly inspiredlater poets such as Byron and Tennyson, thoughtheir works are narrower in scope. The plethora ofresources onHomer in libraries andon the Internetconfirms that his works are ever growing in theirappeal. In fact, a 2007 collection of essays gatheredby Barbara Graziosi and Emily Greenwoodemphasizes the impact of Homer in the twentiethcentury, moving from an already revered positionas the starting point of all great Western literatureto that of a classic of all world literature. Obvi-ously, the Odyssey continues to enjoy the criticalacclaim and popular interest that have been asso-ciated with it throughout most of the two and ahalf millennia since it was first written.

CRITICISM

Michael J. SpiresSpires holds anMAin classics from theUniversity ofColorado at Boulder and one in modern Europeanhistory from Northern Illinois University. In thefollowing essay, he focuses on the human elementand scale of theOdyssey as an important reason forits continued popularity.

As Peter Jones remarks in his 1991 introduc-tion to E. V. Rieu’s translation of the poem, ‘‘TheOdyssey—the return of Odysseus from Troy toreclaim his threatened home on Ithaca—is asuperb story, rich in character, adventure andincident . . . and making the household, ratherthan the battlefield, the centre of its world.’’ Thisobservation goes a long way toward explainingthe epic’s perennial appeal, even nearly threethousand years after it was written.

That is not to say that the Iliad, Homer’s

other epic poem, is not also a superb story—just

a different kind of story. If Homer’s works were

operas, the Iliadwould be something out ofWag-

ner: rather heavy, highly formalized, and full of

deepmeaning—alongwith some really great sing-

ing and special effects. The Odyssey, by contrast,

would be something like Mozart’s The Marriage

of Figaro: It has a definitemoralmessage, but that

message is conveyed through humorous means,

on a human scale, with plenty of mistaken iden-

tities and other plot twists—and again, some

O d y s s e y



really great singing and special effects. To put it in

somewhat more modern terms, the Iliad is more

like Cecil B. DeMille’s treatment of The Ten

Commandments, while the Odyssey has a bit

more in common with George Lucas’s Star

Wars films.

Jones also suggests that Homer has adapted

Odysseus’s adventures in Books 9 through 12

from themyths surrounding Jason and the voyage

of the Argo, but it seems that adapted is perhaps

too strong a word, and it must be emphasized that

Homer would have had excellent reasons for

including such material in the first place, if that

is what he did.

To begin with, heroism is usually set against

the background of a great war or major battle.

Having already used that setting in the Iliad,

Homer must next turn to the other traditional

setting for heroes and heroism, the long and diffi-

cult journey; there was simply no other vocabulary

for heroic behavior available for him to use.

Related to that problem is one of what mightbe called credentials. Tradition has it that Odys-seus’s father was one of those who sailed withJason on the Argo, which is enough to establishOdysseus as a potential hero, but not to provehimahero in his own right. (The same sort of thinghappens to Telemachus in the Odyssey: Merelybeing the son of his father is enough to put him inline to inheritOdysseus’s estates and authority, butif he is going toholdon to that inheritance, hemustearn the respect of others and demonstrate hisability and fitness to succeed his illustrious father.)

Given that Odysseus was much more skilledat stratagems, ambushes, and tactics than at sim-ple hack-and-bash fighting (at least given the wayHomer depicted him in the Iliad), the best way toestablish Odysseus’s credentials as a hero wouldbe for him to do the same sorts of things his father

Laertes had done in his younger days, since thoseare the sorts of things that heroes do when theyare not lucky enough to have a war in which toprove their merits.

Unlike the Iliad, the Odyssey is concernedmore with the individual than the group, andwith individuals who are much more down-to-earth than those found in the earlier poem. Mostpeoplewill never be aHector, keeping an invadingforce at bay all by himself or an Achilles, single-handedly responsible for the continued success ofhis comrades-in-arms. However, the average per-son might measure up to a Penelope, a Telema-chus, or even an Odysseus, at least in spirit andunderstanding. There may not have been enchan-tresses, magic potions, and interfering gods tocontend with, but there are still new places andnew people to discover and to explore, much asOdysseus did on his wanderings. As scientists,astronomers, and astronauts probe the reachesof outer space, the spirit of Odysseus is no lesscomfortable in that little known region than itwashere on Earth; it is fitting that the commandmodule of the ill-fated Apollo XIII mission waschristened the Odyssey.

As Jasper Griffin points out in his discussionof the afterlife of the Odyssey, the popularity ofthe Homeric poems is something of an anomaly:many epic works are popular for a time, then fadeinto obscurity, to be read only by scholars andspecialists. What makes theOdyssey so enjoyableto read is that it is full of people to whommodernreaders can relate. Odysseus, Penelope, Telema-chus, Eumaeus, and even some of the suitors seemauthentic and drawn from real life.

While the epic has obvious connections withthe Iliad and was almost certainly written or com-posed after that poem, it is important to look at theOdyssey as awork in its own right. It is incorrect tocall it an epilogue to the Iliad, as if it were anafterthought, something to tie up a few of theloose ends Homer leaves hanging in the earliertale. It is also important to look at the Odysseyas a work of its time. There is much in the poemthat is relevant tomodern readers, but some partsdo not sit well with many of them. Slavery, forexample, is something that everyone in the poem(and in Homer’s own time) took for granted, andas practiced in Homer’s time was a different insti-tution than it was in the pre-Civil War UnitedStates. Slaves in theOdyssey, especially Eumaeusand Eurycleia, are well-fed, prosperous (Eumaeuseven has a slave of his own), and treatedmore like

JUSTICE AND ORDER PREVAIL IN THE END:

ODYSSEUS IS SAFELY RESTORED TO HOME,

KINGDOM, AND FAMILY, AND ALONG THE WAY

READERS ARE TREATED TO SOME FANTASTIC

STORIES.’’

O d y s s e y



members of the household than servants in it.Laertes is said to have honored Eurycleia no lessthan his own wife, and Anticleia raises Eumaeuswith her own daughter and, when the daughter ismarried off, she gives him gifts and sends him to acountry estate.

There is also the question of the suitors’destruction. The wholesale slaughter of 108 mensimply because they thought to pay court to anavailable woman, even given that they were rudeand disrespectful, may seem a bit much to modernsensibilities. No one in Homer’s audience wouldhave given this a second thought. As Homer iscareful to point out from the very beginning of thepoem, the suitors bring their destruction down onthemselves and could easily have avoided it if theyhad paid attention to the warnings theywere given.

To understand that attitude, it is important toremember, first of all, that the obligations between

hosts and guests were considered sacred duties,

enforced by Zeus in his aspect as god of strangers.

Ancient mythology is full of illustrations of what

becomes those who break the hospitality codes,

from the story of Baucis and Philemon in Ovid’s

Metamorphoses right back to the destruction of

the Cities of the Plain in the Hebrew Scriptures.

Second, in Homer’s time, the ability of a family or

a household to survive was directly linked to its

being able to feed itself. By consuming the resour-

ces of the household, the suitors threaten nothing

less than the survival of Odysseus’s family. On top

of the disruption of the social order, the suitors

also plot to kill both Telemachus and Odysseus, if

they can manage it. Lacking police forces and law

WHATDO I READ

NEXT?

� Thucydides wrote the history, The Peloponne-sian War, which describes the twenty-seven-year war between Athens and Sparta (c. 431–404 BCE) that eventually caused the fall ofAthens. An acclaimed translation by MartinHammond was published by Oxford Univer-sity Press in 2009.

� Historian John Claughton, in hisHerodotusand the Persian Wars (2008), contextualizesthe writings of Herodotus on the expansionof the Persian Empire in the sixth and fifthcenturies BCE Herodotus mentions Homer.

� The Iliad is the other epic poem written byHomer, and it tells some of the events of theTrojan War that take place before the open-ing of theOdyssey. Among the best of severalmodern translations is the Penguin Classicedition by Robert Fagles (2006).

� Waiting for Odysseus (2004), by ClemenceMcLaren, is a teen novel that retells the storyof Homer’sOdyssey from the point of view ofPenelope, Circe, Athena, and Eurycleia.

� In Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight inReading the ‘‘Odyssey’’ and the ‘‘Iliad’’ (2002),

a guide for secondary and college students,classicist Eva Brann, an experienced teacher,explains the characters, story, and languageof Homer’s epics, seeking to show how thepoet achieves delight and how that delightmakes these poems come alive for modernreaders.

� Perhaps the best-known adaptation in Eng-lish is James Joyce’s 1922 novel Ulysses, inwhich a twenty-four-hour day in the Dublinlife of Leopold Bloom is related to scenes inHomer’s poem, although if there were notguides to explain the correlations, probablymost readers would miss them.

� Tennyson’s dramatic monologue, ‘‘Ulys-ses,’’ presents an older Odysseus who arrivesat Ithaca only to realize he cannot retirefrom adventure and be content to live outthe rest of his days by a domestic fire with hisnow twenty-years-older wife. The poem firstappeared in the 1844 collection titled MorteD’Arthur, and Other Idyls, and it reflects theVictorian commitment to exploration andempire building.

O d y s s e y



courts, in Homer’s day personal vengeance andfamily retribution were the accepted means forredressing wrongs. Eventually the Greeks wouldcome to see that this system had its own limita-tions, and they would lay the groundwork for themodern western legal system, but that day wasseveral centuries after Homer’s time.

The Odyssey is the product of a fine, eruditemind. Its intricacy of plot, masterful choice ofboth setting and the point of dramatic time atwhich Homer begins the story, the way he manip-ulates the structure so the major characters cantell their stories about what has taken place dur-ing the twenty years of Odysseus’s absence with-out being dull or anticlimactic, and the extensiveuse of foreshadowing and symbolism, all betray afine creative intelligence at work.

Achilles and Hector are tragic figures in theIliad, but it is in the Odyssey that features of trag-edy, asAristotle later described them inhisPoetics,can also be seen. Here is a noble man, temporarilybrought low by misfortune and, at least to somedegree, by his own character, together with somerather ignoble typeswhoenjoy early prosperity buteventually reap their just rewards. There is even adouble change of circumstances: from good to badfor the suitors, from bad to good for Odysseus.Justice and order prevail in the end: Odysseus issafely restored to home, kingdom, and family, andalong the way readers are treated to some fantasticstories and comic episodes that Aristophanes in allhis glory would have been happy to use. It isremarkable that the Odyssey was written so earlyand sowell; it is all themore remarkable that it livesstill, able to connect to readers in a world, Homercould never have imagined, as inventive as he was.

Source: Michael J. Spires, Critical Essay on Odyssey, in

Epics for Students, 2nd ed., Gale, Cengage Learning, 2011.

Scott A. BelskyIn the following essay, Belsky discusses howHomer’sOdyssey influencedWestern thought.

For roughly 2,500 years people have studied,debated, heralded, and denounced the poetknown as Homer and the works Western civili-zation attributes to him. Through academia’sever-evolving manifestations Homer stands asthe center of authority and stability for anystudent of literature. It is no wonder then thatHomer survives and indeed flourishes in the cur-rent post-structural, postmodern, ideological-rid-den world of the academy. Therefore the truetestament does not reside in the particular

dogmatic light that one shines upon ‘‘Homer’’and other such works, but the ability of theseworks to absorb and refract so many lights

from so many regions of the scholarly world.Nevertheless, there are those who fear thatAncient Greece and particularly Homer are los-

ing their influence on contemporary culturalthought due to the increased push for diversityin literary studies. Such fears seem prematurebecause even the opponents of the canon still

return to Homer for parting shots. Regardlessof the attacks from various camps, Homer per-vades culture both within and outside of the uni-versity; and despite the dirges for the old bard, his

clarion song continues to resonate and reverber-ate at the center of the Western world.

In their article entitled ‘‘WhoKilledHomer?’’professors John Heath and Victor Davis Hansonpaint a bleak and unflattering picture of Homer’s

place in our contemporary society. The two menlament, ‘‘the Greeks who started it all are so littleknown in modern America’’ (Heath and Hanson

1998). The ‘‘it’’ refers to everything from govern-ment to philosophy to science.Heath andHansonplace blame for this condition squarely on theshoulders of the classicists. ‘‘Our present genera-

tion of classicists helped to destroy classical edu-cation . . . our generation of classicists, faced withthe rise of Western culture beyond the borders of

the West, was challenged to explain the impor-tance of Greek thought and values in an age ofelectronic information, mass entertainment andcrass materialism. Here they failed utterly.’’ In

response most classicists would argue quite thecontrary, claiming they have reinvented them-selves and their departments as a way of stayingcurrent while still providing the essential exposure

to ‘‘Greek thought and values.’’ In fact, by broad-ening their horizons many classics departments,both in North America and in Britain, are seeing

increases in enrollment according to the Council

WHAT APPEARS TO BE PERFECTLY NATURAL

WHEN COMMITTED ELSEWHERE AND AGAINST AN

ENEMY TURNS OUT TO BE GROTESQUE AND

SHAMEFUL WHEN PERFORMED AT HOME.’’

O d y s s e y



of University Classical Department of GreatBritain. Furthermore, the American PhilologicalAssociation’s own survey results reveal that thejob market for classicists is stronger than it wasa decade ago and has seen a general trend ofincreases in open positions in recent years. Ifthese organizations’ findings are any indication,theGreeks are still verymuchalive and indemandat the academy.

However, what really seems to aggrieveHeathand Hanson is not so much that the classics aresupposedly disappearing fromWestern education,but the way in which classicists approach theserevered volumes. ‘‘Classicists now, along with thebest social constructionists, moral relativists andliterary theorists in the social sciences and compar-ative literature departments, ‘privilege’ ‘uncover’‘construct,’ ‘cruise’ ‘queer,’ ‘subvert’ and ‘decon-struct’ the ‘text’’’ (Heath and Hanson 1998). Thiscriticism seems shortsighted especially if theseexpanded scopes make the study of classics rele-vant to the current student population. Perhapsone can argue that such scrutiny further demon-strates Homer’s versatility—in other words, whatmakes him so modern for every age. Thereforewhat Matthew Arnold sees in Homer and MichelFoucault sees may vary greatly, but Homer canabsorb both the praise and criticism. It is believedthat every generation gets theHomer it deserves. Itseems one can also say that every generation getsthe criticism of Homer it deserves, and the oneconstant remains—Homer survives andonly deep-ens his pervasiveness within the psyche ofWesterncivilization.

Michael Clark, professor of classics at theUniversity of Cincinnati, demonstrates this pointprecisely in his paper ‘‘Adorno, Derrida, and theOdyssey: A Critique of Center and Periphery.’’He does not look to the shining testimonies ofdemocracy and other enlightened ideals thatbear the influenceofAncientGreece inour societyto prove its influence. On the contrary, he seesnaked capitalism and colonialism as themore tell-ing evidence of Homer’s long-stretching shadow.Clark’s work draws on the critical philosophies ofFreud and Marx along with arguments of otherprominent cultural theorists to make the pointthat the fundamentalOdysseanman, ‘‘whose real-ization as subject is inversely related to the dimin-ution of subjects elsewhere and whose modeof subjectivity is a . . . prototype of bourgeoisimperialism’’ (1989, 110), stands as the blueprintfor the Western man. Using Clark’s definition of

the Odyssean man to examine Odysseus himself,one begins to see less and less of the noble stalwartof the greater good and more of the capitalist.Odysseus’s shrewd machinations to preserve andpromote the self often come at the expense ofthose around him.

One example of such behavior in particularconcerns Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus.Firstly, Odysseus is not content with simply pil-laging cheeses and lambs from theCyclops’ home-stead as his crewmen urge. Rather, he waits in thecave in order to meet its inhabitant, fully expect-ing that he will be treated as a guest in accordancewith the Greek concept of xenia. A close study ofPolyphemus’s initial shock upon discoveringthe men reveals just how misguided Odysseus isabout his plan. The giant blurts, ‘‘‘Strangers! . . .nowwho are you? / where did you sail from, overthe running sea-lanes? / Out on a trading spree orroving the waves like pirates?’’’ (9. 284–86). Clarkcites this passage as evidence that theCyclops seesOdysseus for what he truly is; and in retaliation,Odysseus must blind the creature (1989, 125).Though, examination ofOdysseus’s response sug-gests that he perpetuates his own blindness to thesevere reality of the situation. Had Polyphemuspracticed the values of xenia, as evidenced earlierin Telemachus’ treatment of the stranger at hisdoorsill and Menelaus’s hospitality toward Tele-machus and Pisistratus on their unannouncedvisit to the Spartan king, he would not have beenso forward as to ask these probing questionsbefore making his ‘‘guests’’ welcome. Since Odys-seus works on an egotistical and faulty belief thatthe greater worldworks in alignmentwith his ownworldview, he expects the sort of treatment hewould afford his own guests. The error, though,is that such a conviction leaves themembers of hiscrewwith no option but to remain in the cavewithOdysseus and face the horrid fate of the Cyclops.The men whom Polyphemus selects to eat neverhave an opportunity to realize the self or to act inany independent manner the way Odysseus can.They are not even given names, let alone freewill. In fact, they simply exist in this episode asthe victims of Odysseus’s wrong-headedness andarrogance.

In addition, the dilemma of the Cyclops offersOdysseus alone a chance for self-actualization sinceso often he exists as an individual only when he is ina state of conflict. This episode provides its audienceonly one ‘‘man’’ on whom to focus. One mightargue, sinceOdysseushas labeledhimself ‘‘Nobody’’

O d y s s e y



he is committing an act of self-abnegation; however,the reverse seems toholdmore truth. Sincehenameshimself, he must have a concept of himself and hisplace in the world. Although this namemay suggesta lowering of the self in some capacity, it actuallyhelps to affirm the existence of the individual in thegreater world through announcement. Odysseus,who knows himself to be part of an aristocracy,readilyplays the rolesof lessermenandevenbeggarswhen the situation calls for it in order to accomplishhis goal of escape. Therefore, the taking on of a newidentity through the renamingprocessdemonstrateshis ‘‘cunningly wise’’ attempts at self-preservation.

Yet, the true example of his subjugation ofothers through the realization of the self comes asa result of his choosing to taunt the Cyclops.When he is just barely out of rock-tossing dis-tance, Odysseus calls out, ‘‘Cyclops—/ if anymanon the face of the earth should ask you / whoblinded you, shamed you so—say Odysseus, /raider of cities, he gouged out your eye, / Laertes’sson who makes his home in Ithaca!’’ (9.558–62).This occurs despite his crew’s attempts to preventjust such an outburst. Of course, Odysseus’sactions incur Poseidon’s wrath with the end resultspelling the doom of the crew. Once again, hiscrew is given no opportunity for salvation. Theysimply must abide by the whims of their leader,which often cause greater hardship for them.

Clark’s argument notes a similar behavior inOdysseus’s insistence on hearing the Sirens’ song.Once again, Odysseus puts himself in a positionof diminished authority by allowing himself to be‘‘lashed by ropes to the mast’’ (12.195)—just aswhen he uses the name ‘‘Nobody’’ in the episodeconcerning the Cyclops—in order to gain somesort of ultimate upper hand toward fulfilling hisend desire. He also plugs the oarsmen’s ears withbeeswax to prevent them from hearing the Siren’salluring but fatal song, allowing them to row pastthe island unscathed. Clark concludes that eventhough the Sirens exist beyond Odysseus’sdomain, as does the land of the mighty Cyclops,he ‘‘is still driven [to hear their song] by his colo-nizing impulse, and . . . devises a mechanism tosymbolically master the Sirens’’ (1989, 120).Odysseus’s use of his crewmen, the beeswax, andthe rope further exemplifies the rational man’suse of manpower and technology to secure hisown well being in the face of some opponentequipped only with its natural and inherent abil-ities. Clark likens this to ‘‘the entrepreneur who‘organizes’ labor and who dines on caviar as a

happy result’’ (120). A not dissimilar analogy canbe found in an imperialist Europe that soughtterritories in far-flung reaches of the globe duringthe nineteenth century and earlier. Such colonistsoften ventured in preparation for hostile encoun-ters and made ready with weaponry far superiorto that of the indigenous people they encountered,be it in North America, Africa, or other regions.As with any colonizing peoples, the aggressorsoften come with an eye toward self-aggrandize-ment andOdysseus seems no different in this case.Granted, he does not seek to acquire anythingmaterially from the Sirens, but in his very hearingtheir song and living to tell about it, he hasobtained mastery over them. Yet again, Odys-seus’s special privilege of listening to this songcomes at a price to the others around him. Inthis case the Sirens are stripped of their innate,though deadly, quality for the sheer pleasure ofWestern man.

To continue, once a reader uses the dissent-ing methods of Clark and other contemporarycritics, the Iliad andOdyssey also reveal a doublestandard for those who are of the aristocraticruling class and those who are not. In the fewopportunities that lesser characters are given anindependent voice, they are always presented inan unfavorable light, seemly reinforcing the pro-motion of opportunism but only for the elite, atheory not unlike certain political agendas of thecontemporary Western world, and the topic ofargument for nearly all Marxist criticism.

Let us examine the few times that lesser, non-aristocratic characters are given an independentvoice in the Odyssey. In Book 10, Odysseus tellsAlcinous, king of the Phaeacians, ‘‘we were soclose [to Ithaca] we could see men tending fires’’(10.34). While Odysseus sleeps, however, his crewgrows curious about the sack given to him byAeolus, god of the winds. One crewman says,‘‘Heaps of lovely plunder he hauls home fromTroy, / while we who went through slogging justas hard, / we go home empty-handed’’ (10.45–47).Themen proceed to open the sack—that in actualfact holds the wayward winds, not the covetedplunder the crew expects—and their ship is blownclear away from their homeland. It seems appa-rent that Homer intends audiences to see thisinsurrection as a most detestable breech of socialorder. Not only does this act violate the allianceof crew to captain, it desecrates the hierarchy ofking to subject, a divine arrangement lorded overby Zeus himself.

O d y s s e y



In a second example, when the crew isstranded onHelios’s Island andOdysseus instructsthem not to harm the Sungod’s cattle, the menignore his urgings and slaughter some to staveoff starvation. Helios’s retribution comes whenhe pleads his case to Zeus who, in turn, strikesOdysseus’s remaining ship with a thunderbolt. Inboth cases the men who attempt to realize a senseof self and promote their own agenda receive pun-ishment and scornwhen that agenda conflicts withthe designs of the ruling class.

Still, a third example of self-identity in the

Odyssey comes in the form of the disloyal serving

maid Melantho. She not only verbally abuses

Odysseus when he is disguised as a beggar; she

also has the audacity to become the lover of one

of the suitors. Both actions suggest independence

and declaration of the self. However, the sexual

relationship seems to be the more heinous act

against Odysseus because it is a strike at his posi-

tion as an aristocrat. William Thalmann points

out, ‘‘for suitors to sleep with [serving maids] is a

blow at Odysseus’s property, an implicit claim of

rival ownership’’ (1998, 72). It is a violation more

in linewith the greedy crewmenwhomistakenly let

loose the winds, rather than the act of self-suste-

nance those same crewmen commit in slaughtering

the cattle. In this sense, theOdyssey tends to estab-

lish a view that any offence against the holdings

of the divinely appointed ruling class cannot go

unpunished. Although, in all three examples men-

tioned here, the characters that attempt to advance

a self-interest counter to Odysseus’s interest create

a rift in hierarchical structure. Consequently, one

could conclude that such treatment of minor char-

acters not of the ruling class promotes a tone of

imperialism that permeates Homer’s texts and as a

result endorses the status quo.

Yet, it is worth noting that in the IliadAchillesalso threatens the hierarchical fabric through hispublic feud with Agamemnon. In fact, the poemopens, ‘‘Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’sson Achilles, / murderous, doomed, that cost theAchaeans countless losses’’ (I.1–2). In no uncertainterms, Homer blames Achilles for the carnage suf-fered by theArgive forces as a result of his attemptat independence, but unlike the other characterswhose promotion of the self left them unredeem-able, Achilles remains a focal and even at timessympathetic character in the Iliad. Granted, thisindependence leadshim tobowoutof the fight, butas Lowell Edmunds notes, Achilles’s ‘‘loyalty toAgamemnon and to his fellows is based on the

principles of philia, a kind of friendship. This philia

is pre-political or apolitical’’ (2004, 42). Therefore,

Achilles has no hierarchical tie toAgamemnon the

way a subject might and has no absolute duty to

follow him. Furthermore, both men are of the

aristocratic class and as a result their declarations

of self appear acceptable, welcome, encouraged or

at the very least expected.On the other hand, when

Thersites expresses a similar sentiment as Achilles,

he is roared down and beaten by Odysseus, much

to the delight of the other non-ruling class soldiers

who remain nameless and loyal.

Contemporary scholars tend to read this

episode in varying ways. Some see Thersites as

evidence that Homer may not have supported

the rule of a small, dominant class, and therefore

advocates some form of democratic voice; while

others, such as Thalmann, see the dissention as

revealing an actual tension among classes that

ultimately reinforces the ideology of the ruling

class.

Firstly, let us examine the build up to this

episode. Agamemnon issues a test to the Achaean

forces by ordering a return home. Much to his

surprise, the men ‘‘cried in alarm and charged

toward the ships’’ (II.174). It takes Odysseus to

reinstate the fighting spirit in the soldiers, both

the aristocratic leaders and the common ranks.

Homer appears to display a particularly favorable

view of aristocracy as seen through the way Odys-

seus goes about bolstering each class of fighters.

‘‘Whenever Odysseus met some man of rank, a

king, / he’d halt and hold him back with winning

words’’ (II.218–19). Compare this with his treat-

ment of the men from the lower orders: ‘‘When he

caught some common soldier shouting out, / he’d

beat him with the scepter, dress him down’’

(II.229–30). Such obvious contrasts in behavior

and manner might suggest a biased view of class,

yet Odysseus could also be politically motivated in

his words toward fellow aristocrats. If he speaks

his disgust at their self-actualizing desires to flee

the war at Troy and return to the business of their

own autonomies and disregard the ideology of a

unified ruling class, he risks embarrassing them

and disrupting the social order of aristocracy, a

fault already committed by Achilles through his

condemnation of Agamemnon. Nevertheless, a

beating of the lower classes with a scepter, of all

objects, does appear to be a strong symbolic

avowal of the ruling class’s dominance.

O d y s s e y



Kurt A. Raaflaub in his essay ‘‘Homer andthe Beginning of Political Thought in Greece’’offers a similar view:

The poet tries hard to discredit [Thersites] from

the beginning, and when Thersites at the end

gets his deserved beating the crowd is ecstatic:

the greatest deed Odysseus has ever done. Hav-

ing thus made clear that this man counts for

nothing, the poet can let him say what actually

is to be taken very seriously. For what Thersites

says not only is explicitly described as venting

the anger of the masses but corresponds closely

with Achilles’ criticism [of Agamemnon]. (Raa-

flaub 2004, 29)

For Raaflaub, such an act reveals a poet who hasan awareness of the power the masses can wieldif properly united the way the ruling class seemsto be. This potential could eventually sow theseed of change if not for the blunt violence ofaristocracy in the form of Odysseus. By puttingthis legitimate criticism of the ruling class in themouth of a dissenter, Homer can address thevery real dangers of an unchecked oligarchywhile still maintaining the expected adherenceto social order.

William Thalmann, on the other hand, con-

tends that Thersites’s outburst, while voicing an

ostensibly actual aspect of the delicate balance

among classes, in the end does more to reinforce

the class divide than attend to any possible critique

of the power structure. For Thalmann, Thersites

exemplifies the chaos that exists in the interplay

between ruling and dominated classes. Because

of his vulgar and brazen speech, this soldier is

described as ‘‘the ugliest man who ever came to

Troy’’ (II.250). To further accentuate the point

that he is not to be taken seriously as a member

of the social order nor as a soldier, he is discredited

as ‘‘bandy-legged’’ and as one who always seeks to

‘‘provoke some laughter from the troops’’ (II.249).

Essentially, Thersites fulfills the role of comic

relief. Thalmann calls him the ‘‘alazonor imposter’’

because he dares to assert himself in the face of a

member of the ruling class (1988, 16). Yet, it is

Agamemnon’s own actions and the actions of

Achilles, of course both aristocrats that give Ther-

sites the ‘‘courage’’ or possibly ‘‘impudence’’ to act.

Ironically, Thersites’s name can mean both ‘‘cour-

age’’ and ‘‘impudence.’’ Since he was witness to

bothAgamemnon’s self-serving, haughtydemands

and Achilles’s rant against such behavior, Ther-

sites perhaps feels emboldened to vent his own

displeasure.

As stated above, Thersites’s words express alegitimate grievance; one Achilles himself posesearlier. He says of Agamemnon:

Howshamefulof you, thehighandmightycommander,

To lead the sons of Achaea into bloody slaughter!

Sons? No, my soft friends, wretched excuses—

Women, not men of Achaea! Home we go in ships!

Abandon him here in Troy to wallow in all his

prizes. (Iliad II.272–76)

Compare this with Achilles’s first words upon

hearing Agamemnon’s desire for Chryseis, the

captiveTrojanwomanoriginallywonbyAchilles:

‘‘Shameless—/ armored in shamelessness—

always shrewd with greed!’’ (I.174–75). Although

bothpoint out the dishonorable act of lusting over

women and plunder, only Thersites earns a beat-

ing from Odysseus for his indignation. Therefore

Odysseus’s actions have more to do with main-

taining social order than with any personal aver-

sion to the sentiment. Thalmannpoints out, ‘‘Like

many comic characters, [Thersites] is on the mar-

gins of society and blurs class distinctions. His

detached, ironic perspective also allows a peculiar

clarity of vision, bringing into focus tensions and

contradictions in society that otherwise would

remain half concealed, tolerated by the com-

moners with inarticulate resentment at most’’

(1988, 17). In this sense Thalmann agrees with

Raaflaub’s contention that the sentiment of Ther-

sites’ vitriol concerns an issue of import, worth

acknowledging not only in terms of the story but

in the greater society as well. Both also acknowl-

edge that since Thersites speaks in the language of

the ruling class, he proves a legitimate threat to the

order necessary tomaintain the class system. Such

a hazard further prompts Odysseus to beat him,

and by doing so Odysseus once again commits

an act of self-preservation, not unlike those men-

tioned earlier. Only here the ‘‘self’’ Odysseus

strives to maintain is really the body of the dom-

inant class and not simply the individual.

Thus, it can be concluded that Odysseus,

who is heralded for his cunning and power with

words, actually resorts to the barbarism of brute

force and physical violence in an attempt to pro-

tect an ideology that favors him over the

‘‘others.’’ In this moment the whole class struc-

ture can collapse under the weight ofmass revolt,

but rather ‘‘Thersites, through his defiance and

the reaction it provokes, involuntarily performs

a healing function for his society’’ (Thalmann

1988, 17). This ‘‘healing’’ occurs when the

O d y s s e y



soldiers who witness his beating begin to laugh

and mock Thersites themselves. In fact, by the

end of the episode, the nameless soldiers recon-

dition themselves in the language and value sys-

tem of the ruling class’s ideology by jeering,

‘‘Never again, I’d say, will our gallant comrade/

risk his skin to attack the kings with insults’’

(II.323–24). Therefore, the catalyst for a possible

recognition of the social ills committed by the

unconstrained ruling class is lost through the

unconscious affirmation of that very ruling

class by those it subjugates.

Aside from allowing only those members ofthe ruling nobility to appear in a positive lightwhen they express a concept of the self, Homeralso holds a double standard when it comes to thetypes of behaviors deemed acceptable at homeand abroad. It is on this issue that Michael Clarkmakes his most damning but also his most poign-ant criticismofHomer and subsequentlyHomer’sinfluence on Western thought. For Clark, ‘‘thewhole of the Homeric oeuvre ostensibly endorsesplunder as a primal act of survival and suprem-acy’’ (1989, 115). In fact, a great deal of the battle-field banter in the Iliad concerns the ritual ofstripping armor from a defeated warrior. Forexample, after Hector slays Patroclus, Menelausconfronts the Trojan prince and taunts him withclaims that he can ease Patroclus’s parents’ grief‘‘if only [he] brought [Hector’s] head and bloodyarmor home/ and laid them in Panthous’ lovingarms’’ (XVII.44–45). Later when Hector chal-lenges Achilles, he promises, ‘‘once I’ve strippedyour glorious armor, Achilles, / I will give yourbody back to your loyal comrades’’ (XXII.305–06). In both instances, the right to the armor bythe victor demonstrates the clear symbolic subju-gation of the defeated warrior. That is why, as amatter of personal and ethnic pride, Menelausalong with the other Achaeans fights stalwartlyto try and prevent Hector’s stripping of Patro-clus’s corpse. Without these tokens of achieve-ment Hector’s victory would ring hollow.

The Odyssey too promotes this view regard-

ing plunder. Shortly after leaving Troy, Odysseus

and his crew ‘‘sacked the [Cicones’] city, / killed

the men, but as for the wives and plunder, / that

rich haul [they] dragged away from the place’’

(9.45–47). Although these acts may be thought

of as the spoils of war committed against an ally

of the enemy, a later incident suggests this type

of behavior to be reflective of a pervasive oppor-

tunistic mindset that values the ill-gotten gain

over all other kinds. As Clark asserts, Odysseus’s

own words to Athena upon his return to Ithaca

imply that any reward given to one as a gift ‘‘is less

worthy of respect than that which has been taken

via brute force—a model vaguely reminiscent of

the bull-headed capitalist who respects only what

is ‘earned the hard way’’’ (1989, 115). In this par-

ticular episode, Athena, disguised as a shepherd

boy, comes uponOdysseus, who has just returned

to his homeland bearing the gifts given to him by

the Phaeacians. Unaware of the goddess in dis-

guise, Odysseus launches out on an elaborate fab-

rication outlining how he acquired the loot at the

battles of Troy and how he killed the man intent

on robbing him of it. All of these examples appear

to indicate that the imposition of one’s will upon

another individual or group commands the greater

sense ofmanhood and essentially self-hood.Yet, it

cannot be overlooked that these instances of buc-

caneering, or supposed buccaneering, all take place

away from Ithaca.

So where does that leave those characters

who commit plunder within Ithaca? Firstly, they

perpetrate a crime against their fellow citizens and

divine lawbyviolating the concept ofxenia,which

governs the behaviors of guests as well as hosts.

Secondly, they demonstrate a faulty view of the

Odyssean ethic because they choose to execute

their acts of plundering within the boundaries

of their own society. Therefore, they are rightly

deemed reprehensible and deserving of punish-

ment. The incriminating acts the suitors perform

against Odysseus’s household are not much dif-

ferent than what Odysseus and his crewmen have

committed elsewhere, but the intent cannot be

justified due to the suitors’ relationship to the

oikos, or ruling household, of Odysseus. Since

many of the suitors are actually citizens of Ithaca,

their shameful deeds strike at the heart of the

social hierarchy. Granted, even though the men

are nobility themselves, this distinction does not

lessen the severity of the threat. Once again, in

slaughtering the suitors, Odysseus executes an act

of self-preservation and self-actualization. His

revenge restores the social order just as we have

seen him do earlier in the incident at Troy. Clark

affirms, ‘‘the modern parallel is not difficult to

conceive, the one in which imperialistic activity

is notonly condemned, but unheardof, at home—

be it within the United States, Europe, or the

industrialized ‘West’ in general—and yet is all

too commonplace, even ordinary, away from the

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center’’ (1989, 116). Such a striking parallel may

prove it evident, though not very flattering, that

Homer continues to be alive and well in our own

culture. Thus, the suitors’ actions demonstrate the

Odyssean colonial influence in all its ‘‘ruthlessness

and ambiguity’’ (117). Furthermore, they express

just how pervasive this behavior can become.

What appears to be perfectly natural when com-

mitted elsewhere and against an enemy turns out

to be grotesque and shameful when performed

at home.

So it seems appropriate to return to the ques-tion posed at the onset by Heath and Hanson,‘‘Who killed Homer?’’ The answer, aptly enough,seems to be ‘‘Nobody.’’ He lives in our society asnaturally and ubiquitously as the air we breathe.Wemay not notice his influence because all we doand are maintain his indelible mark. As Clarknotes in his argument, some time ago WilliamBennett called for higher education to return toa core of great texts that expressed the best West-ern civilization had to offer on the human expe-rience (1989, 111). It might sound like a nobleendorsement and unquestionably Homer’s worksdeserve to be at the center of such a notion, butto blindly accept wholesale what these texts offeris to fall victim to a grievous error. Thus, thecurrent trend in cultural criticism of dissentingreadership, or what one may call reading ‘‘againstthe grain,’’ seems profoundly appropriate forexamining Homer and all ‘‘great’’ works. As Thal-mann states at the close of his book, The Swine-herd and the Bow:

If it is true that ideology can only be fully

recognized as such in a culture and among

people removed from oneself, then uncovering

how ideologies work in a culture so distant as

that of eighth-century and Archaic Greece can

help us look afresh at the discourses that today

variously justify and disguise huge and ever

growing economic, social, and racial inequal-

ities. . . . A text, furthermore, that has enjoyed

the rather ambivalent honor of being made a

‘‘classic’’ requires this special effort of ‘‘reading

against the grain’’ if it is not to be taken for

granted and reduced to banality. . . . And so an

alternative to taking the narrative’s alleged val-

ues as self-evident is to interrogate it for the

ways in which it represents political experience,

as opposed to reproducing it, and to ask the

reasons for the particular ways in which it does

so. (Thalmann 1998, 305)

In a current political climate that tends to see theworld in terms of us (good) and them (bad), no

greater evidence canwe have of Ancient Greece’s

inspiration on contemporary thought. For every

‘‘Axis of Evil’’ we can turn to Homer and find a

parallel in the Trojan allies, such as the Cicones,

who are reduced to nothing more than targets

for plunder. With each passing day that we see

the attempt to spread Western influence across

the globe, we can look to Polyphemus’s cave,

or the shores of the lotus-eaters and the Laestry-

gonians and see the ignorant attempts to make a

wider world fit into a more familiar, narrower

point of view. Yet, generosity and camaraderie

also exist in our Western world, along with cun-

ning and innovation. These too are the stalwarts

of our ancestors. Therefore, theWest cannot but

be colored with Homer’s brush. His critics and

champions alike only help to amplify his perma-

nence within our culture, and every new addition

to the canon wears the beggar’s rags that conceal

the Odyssean ethic underneath. While some may

be direct reshapings of the myth, as has been

recently undertaken by many writers including

Margaret Atwood and Elizabeth Cook along

with film director Wolfgang Peterson, others

are an indirect homage as delivered in the Coen

brothers’ film O Brother, Where Art Thou? So

indeed the bard still lives in all we do and say,

both the good and the bad. Nevertheless, nay-

sayers and detractors will continue to bewail

his demise regardless of how plainly he sings

through our every deed and exploit.

Source: Scott A. Belsky, ‘‘The Poet Who Sings Through

Us: Homer’s Influence in Contemporary Western Cul-

ture,’’ in College Literature, Vol. 34, No. 2, Spring 2007,

pp. 216–28.

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SOURCES

Biers, William R., The Archaeology of Greece: An Intro-duction, Cornell University Press, 1996.

Butler, Samuel,Authoress of the ‘‘Odyssey,’’ 1897, reprint,Forgotten Books, 2008.

Fagles, Robert, trans., Odyssey (Penguin Classics), byHomer, edited with introduction by Bernard Knox, Pen-guin Classics, 2006.

Ford, Philip, ‘‘Homer in the French Renaissance,’’ inRenaissance Quarterly, Vol. 59, No. 1, 2006.

Graziosi, Barbara, and Emily Greenwood, eds.,Homer inthe Twentieth Century: Between World Literature and theWestern Canon, Oxford University Press, 2007.

Griffin, Jasper,Homer: The ‘‘Odyssey’’: A Student Guide,2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Jones, Peter V., ‘‘Introduction,’’ inTheOdyssey, translatedby E. V. Rieu, 1946, reprint, Penguin Classics, 1991, p. xi.

Levi, Peter, The Pelican History of Greek Literature,Penguin, 1985.

FURTHER READING

Bloom, Harold, ed., Homer’s The ‘‘Odyssey,’’ Chelsea

House, 2007.

This book is an updated collection of ten essays

with diverse critical approaches to theOdyssey.

Nagy, Gregory, Homer the Classic (Hellenic Studies),

Center for Hellenic Studies, 2010.

This study traces the reception of Homer’s

poetry from the fifth through the first century

BCE Nagy explains Homer’s literary influence

on the centuries that immediately followed him

and also how his epics were used by individuals

and states to promote certain cultural and polit-

ical agenda. Nagy’s purpose is to show how

Homer’s poems became classics during the

years of when Athens flourished.

Paipetis, S.A.,TheUnknownTechnology inHomer (History

of Mechanism andMachine Science), Springer, 2010.

This English translation of a book originally

written in Greek is a study of the scientific and

technological knowledge contained in Homer’s

epics, which indicates a highly advanced civiliza-

tion in the Mycenaean era.

Stark, Freya, Ionia: A Quest, Tauris Parke, 2010.

Modern-day Ionia, including inland from the

western shore, in the area in which Homer is

purported to have lived, is the focus of this new

book.

Wachsmann, Shelley,Seagoing Ships and Seamanship in the

Bronze Age Levant, Texas A&M University Press, 2008.

This book offers a comprehensive study of how

early eastern Mediterranean cultures took to the

sea. Included are Aegeans, Minoans, Myce-

naeans, among others. Wachsmann describes

ship construction, piracy, laws pertaining to the

sea, and Bronze Age shipwrecks.

SUGGESTED SEARCH TERMS

Odyssey

Homer

Homer AND epic

Homer AND poet

Odysseus AND Penelope

Odysseus AND Calypso

Greek epic

Odysseus

Odysseus AND Cyclops

Odysseus AND Ithaca

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Documents

Odyssey - Manasquan Public Schools