The Odyssey December 5, 2016
Reminder Vocab Exam on Wednesday Essay Due on Friday
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The Blinding of Polyphemus
The Odyssey Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns... driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy. Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds, many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
First, a Brief Word on Homer We know next to nothing about Homer, apart from the fact that he was probably blind We can make an educated guess that his two-part epic poem, The Iliad (named for Ilium, the Greek word for Troy) and The Odyssey (named for its main character, Odysseus), were written around 800 B.C. (about 300 years before Medea, so we cheated a bit) Several other poems, odes and hymns are attributed to him, but nothing is certain There is little doubt that while the story had been sung (literally) for centuries before his time, Homer was the first to write them down
Guess What? There Actually Was a Troy We know this because in the early 1870 s, a German archaeologist named Schliemann discovered the ruins of the city. We estimate that the war between Troy and the Greek kingdoms (remember, there was no Greece then) probably happened around 1200 B.C. Right about now, the line between history and myth starts to get a bit fuzzy
Is this the face that launched a thousand ships, and burned the topless towers of Ilium? Long story short: Paris, Prince of Troy, visits the Spartan king Menelaus. With the help of the goddess Aphrodite, he kidnaps a surprisingly willing Helen and takes her back to Troy. Menelaus calls upon his fellow kings, including his brother Agamemnon, the old and wise Nestor and the clever Odysseus to form an army, sail to Troy and bring Helen back Agamemnon is the leader of the army, but its greatest warrior is the fabled Achilles, sun of Thetis and basically a demigod (like a certain dude from Uruk we know and love) Sounds simple enough, right? We ll be home in a couple of months, tops
Well, Things Don t Go All That Smoothly..in fact, the Iliad opens 9 years after Helen s kidnapping, with the Greek army still trying to conquer Troy. They have struggled for all these years for three basic reasons: the constant in-fighting among the Greeks (at the start of the book, Achilles is pouting in his tent, refusing to fight) the heroism of many of the Trojan warriors, particularly Hector, brother of Paris and son of King Priam the fact that the gods are constantly taking sides and interfering. Pay particular attention to Athena (big supporter of Odysseus) and Poseidon (hater) After much give and take, Achilles, angered by the death of his friend Patrocles, fights Hector man to man and kills him, dragging his body around the gates of Troy tied to the back of his chariot
Wait, Wasn t There Something About a Big Wooden Horse? We don t actually get to see the end of the Trojan War. In The Odyssey, we hear Menelaus tell the story of Odysseus brilliant idea that wins the war. Troy is burned, and there is only one survivor (although there may be one more ) The victory comes at a steep price for the clever king, however. Poseidon, angered that his beloved Troy was burned to the ground, punishes Odysseus by making the voyage home (which should have taken a couple of weeks) into a 10-year disaster. The story of his voyage home is the main action of The Odyssey.
Meanwhile, Back In Ithaca While we will be focusing mostly on Odysseus voyage home, there are two other important stories happening in the background: There is the story of Penelope, Odysseus faithful wife, who has spent years fending off a group of suitors who keep telling her that her husband has to be dead and that she should remarry And the story of Telemachus, who was an infant when his father left for Troy. Now a young man, he decides to stop sitting around for Dad to come home. He sets off on his own adventurous voyage, visiting the kings and soldiers who fought alongside his father, piecing together the story of what might have happened to Odysseus.
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