The Odyssey
This page is for Extension English students at Riverside, but feel free to include any of he recommended texts in your wide reading. It is so far focused on suggestions for related texts, so let me know if you'd like me to include secondary resources on the texts you're studying in class.
Why Study the Odyssey?
Virginia Woolf On not knowing Greek: "The Odyssey is merely a story of adventure, the instinctive story-telling of a sea-faring race. So we may begin it, reading quickly in the spirit of children wanting amusement to find out what happens next. But here is nothing immature; here are full-grown people, crafty, subtle, and passionate. ... It is true that the islands are not thickly populated, and the people, ... have had time to develop a very dignified, a very stately society, with an ancient tradition of manners behind it, which makes every relation at once orderly, natural, and full of reserve. Penelope crosses the room; Telemachus goes to bed; Nausicaa washes her linen; and their actions seem laden with beauty because they do not know that they are beautiful, have been born to their possessions, are no more self-conscious than children, and yet, all those thousands of years ago, in their little islands, know all that is to be known. With the sound of the sea in their ears, vines, meadows, rivulets about them, they are even more aware than we are of a ruthless fate. There is a sadness at the back of life which they do not attempt to mitigate."
Bob Dylan's Noble Prize for Literature speech, 2016 (scroll down to just past halfway for his take on the Odyssey: "In a lot of ways, some of these same things have happened to you. You too have had drugs dropped into your wine. You too have shared a bed with the wrong woman. You too have been spellbound by magical voices... You have angered people you should not have. And you too have rambled this country all around. And you’ve also felt that ill wind, the one that blows you no good. "
Why Study the Odyssey?
Virginia Woolf On not knowing Greek: "The Odyssey is merely a story of adventure, the instinctive story-telling of a sea-faring race. So we may begin it, reading quickly in the spirit of children wanting amusement to find out what happens next. But here is nothing immature; here are full-grown people, crafty, subtle, and passionate. ... It is true that the islands are not thickly populated, and the people, ... have had time to develop a very dignified, a very stately society, with an ancient tradition of manners behind it, which makes every relation at once orderly, natural, and full of reserve. Penelope crosses the room; Telemachus goes to bed; Nausicaa washes her linen; and their actions seem laden with beauty because they do not know that they are beautiful, have been born to their possessions, are no more self-conscious than children, and yet, all those thousands of years ago, in their little islands, know all that is to be known. With the sound of the sea in their ears, vines, meadows, rivulets about them, they are even more aware than we are of a ruthless fate. There is a sadness at the back of life which they do not attempt to mitigate."
Bob Dylan's Noble Prize for Literature speech, 2016 (scroll down to just past halfway for his take on the Odyssey: "In a lot of ways, some of these same things have happened to you. You too have had drugs dropped into your wine. You too have shared a bed with the wrong woman. You too have been spellbound by magical voices... You have angered people you should not have. And you too have rambled this country all around. And you’ve also felt that ill wind, the one that blows you no good. "
Introductory Texts
Overviews
Various translations
Introductory Materials:
Study Guides
Secondary Texts
Mapping the Journey
- the Odyssey in (just over) a minute - for a super-speed summary or listen to the summary form Overly-Sarcastic Productions.
- E-notes has an amusing infographic of the death-count!
- Lego version - just for fun!
- Read the original (in translation) here
Various translations
- Poetry in Translation A. S. Kline's fairly traditional translation is well organised with each book divided into sections so you can find the bit you need.
- John Dryden
- Golding (The version Shakespeare would have used if he were reading it in English) highly poetic - many suggest this to be closest in atmosphere to the Latin original
- Alexander Pope
- Mary M Innes - straightforward prose version with lots of action and romance
Introductory Materials:
- Guide to the Classics: Homer's Odyssey -
- Peter Hinton (director) discusses his production of a stage version of the Odyssey
- TV TRopes - has a list of tropes found in the epic that will be extremely familiar to you
Study Guides
- Shmoop - good basic overview to get you started or if you need to quickly revise a certain chapter.
- Spark notes -
Secondary Texts
- Edith Hall - The Return of Ulysses: A Cultural history -a great run-down on the impact of Ulysses on Western culture
- The Odyssey : an epic of return / William G. Thalmann (available in city of sydney library)
- comments on Ovid's interpretation: https://windswaves.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/ulysses-eloquent-master-of-language/
Mapping the Journey
- The Odyssey: Map has a general representation of events in 'chronological order'
- The Geography of the Odyssey shows various cartographic representations of Odysseus' journey, and explains why each cartographer came up with their interpretation.
What approach might I take?
Scroll down to read about the hero's Journey, feminist critiques, Postcolonial critiques, psychoanalytical interpretations, postmodernism, queer theory and Marxist/socialist critiques.
Think about the types of comparisons you'll be making in your presentation, and the themes and characters you'll be exploring. You could choose one of these 'lenses' to link together your ideas, or blend a combination of approaches into your own interpretation.
Think about the types of comparisons you'll be making in your presentation, and the themes and characters you'll be exploring. You could choose one of these 'lenses' to link together your ideas, or blend a combination of approaches into your own interpretation.
The Hero's Journey
Definition
The idea of the hero's journey pervades Western storytelling, and is the underlying structure for most Hollywood films (even non-adventure films - for example, think about the role of the protagonist and facilitating best friend in romantic comedies or role of the mentors and protagonists in teen makeover movies!). The Odyssey is one of the oldest surviving versions. It is a cyclical journey undertaken by a hero under the guidance of a mentor (who may be supernatural). There are specific challenges and temptations along the way leading to a cathartic revelation the hero returns to the point of origin after a transformative experience. A google search will bring up lots of versions of the image on the left that will help if you're a visual learner. Here are some visual representations to get you started. You might also choose to look specifically at the models offered by mentors in the film industry to see where the formula is at currently.
Concepts
If you are an extension student, make sure you go past the literal/structural aspects otherwise you'll be analysing at a very superficial level! You could look at willing vs. reluctant heroes, the role of the mentor/guide (Athena's interventions/Gandalf's leadership), attributes of heroes in different cultural contexts, the rise of the antihero in the late C20th,
Theorists
Robert Campbell (reference: The Hero with a Thousand Faces), Robert Graves - both proponents of the monomyth, a 'universal' myth from which all other myths (all all other cultures!) derive - eg. the hero's journey. Carl Jung
Good related texts
Tennyson's poems based on Greek or Arthurian myths, Shelley's poem Ozymandias, Goethe's Faust (play), Marlow's Dr Faustus (play), Strictly Ballroom (script), Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, Dante's Inferno, Jack Keruac's On the Road, The Hobbit or any fantasy-quest book (Lord of the Rings is way too long!), Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, The girl who circumnavigated fairyland (in a ship of her own making), The Lie Tree, The Amber Spyglass.
Hollywood films are likely to lead to a superficial interpretation unless they're exceptionally well made with lots of film techniques to discuss or you're using the hero's journey as a way into another approach (eg. feminist critiques of the hero's journey), so choose well if that's what you're using for a related text. European and arthouse/cult films tend to work better than Hollywood blockbusters as they have more complex structure, themes and characterisation.
Sections to look at in your presentation
You could focus on the meta-narrative sections rather than the events of the story within a story - why do high status characters treat Odysseus as a hero? how does this construct him for us as readers/listeners? How does a retelling like the Penelopiad interact with the original heroic constructions in the reader's mind?
The idea of the hero's journey pervades Western storytelling, and is the underlying structure for most Hollywood films (even non-adventure films - for example, think about the role of the protagonist and facilitating best friend in romantic comedies or role of the mentors and protagonists in teen makeover movies!). The Odyssey is one of the oldest surviving versions. It is a cyclical journey undertaken by a hero under the guidance of a mentor (who may be supernatural). There are specific challenges and temptations along the way leading to a cathartic revelation the hero returns to the point of origin after a transformative experience. A google search will bring up lots of versions of the image on the left that will help if you're a visual learner. Here are some visual representations to get you started. You might also choose to look specifically at the models offered by mentors in the film industry to see where the formula is at currently.
Concepts
If you are an extension student, make sure you go past the literal/structural aspects otherwise you'll be analysing at a very superficial level! You could look at willing vs. reluctant heroes, the role of the mentor/guide (Athena's interventions/Gandalf's leadership), attributes of heroes in different cultural contexts, the rise of the antihero in the late C20th,
Theorists
Robert Campbell (reference: The Hero with a Thousand Faces), Robert Graves - both proponents of the monomyth, a 'universal' myth from which all other myths (all all other cultures!) derive - eg. the hero's journey. Carl Jung
Good related texts
Tennyson's poems based on Greek or Arthurian myths, Shelley's poem Ozymandias, Goethe's Faust (play), Marlow's Dr Faustus (play), Strictly Ballroom (script), Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote, Dante's Inferno, Jack Keruac's On the Road, The Hobbit or any fantasy-quest book (Lord of the Rings is way too long!), Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, The girl who circumnavigated fairyland (in a ship of her own making), The Lie Tree, The Amber Spyglass.
Hollywood films are likely to lead to a superficial interpretation unless they're exceptionally well made with lots of film techniques to discuss or you're using the hero's journey as a way into another approach (eg. feminist critiques of the hero's journey), so choose well if that's what you're using for a related text. European and arthouse/cult films tend to work better than Hollywood blockbusters as they have more complex structure, themes and characterisation.
Sections to look at in your presentation
You could focus on the meta-narrative sections rather than the events of the story within a story - why do high status characters treat Odysseus as a hero? how does this construct him for us as readers/listeners? How does a retelling like the Penelopiad interact with the original heroic constructions in the reader's mind?
Feminist critique
NOTE: Make sure you read Emily Wilson's new translation of the Odyssey if you're doing this angle - she's the first woman to have ever translated Homer's text into English. It's just been added to the library collection.
Definition
concepts: look at past the obvious misogyny - discuss what's left out as well as what's included (eg Circe has boatloads of randy sailors arrive on her island - is there a choice other than gang rape and sorcery? What's the role of Athena (a woman who continually intervenes on his behalf)? should we even consider her role to be 'female'? Why do women fall for Odysseus? How does Odysseus treat women on his return (the handmaiden clean up the blood of their lovers' slaughter and are then hung) - does it actually vary from the behavior of heroes (or antiheroes) in Hollywood films?
theorists: Gilbert and gubar? Virginia Woolf, Cixous,
I think Cixous works really well for this because she's interested in women's embodied experiences, but she's one of the more difficult theorists so see me if you're using her.
sections to look at: Circe's island, homecoming, Penelope, Athena, the Lie Tree,
good related texts: symbolist painters (who give Circe more power than even mots contemporary writers), Virginia Woolf's Orlando (or hte film of it), cixous' creative works, Adrienne rich's poems,
https://www.thoughtco.com/feminist-literary-criticism-3528960
https://medium.com/cloelia-wcc/homeric-studies-feminism-and-queer-theory-interpreting-helen-and-penelope-ac63b5970628
Definition
concepts: look at past the obvious misogyny - discuss what's left out as well as what's included (eg Circe has boatloads of randy sailors arrive on her island - is there a choice other than gang rape and sorcery? What's the role of Athena (a woman who continually intervenes on his behalf)? should we even consider her role to be 'female'? Why do women fall for Odysseus? How does Odysseus treat women on his return (the handmaiden clean up the blood of their lovers' slaughter and are then hung) - does it actually vary from the behavior of heroes (or antiheroes) in Hollywood films?
theorists: Gilbert and gubar? Virginia Woolf, Cixous,
I think Cixous works really well for this because she's interested in women's embodied experiences, but she's one of the more difficult theorists so see me if you're using her.
sections to look at: Circe's island, homecoming, Penelope, Athena, the Lie Tree,
good related texts: symbolist painters (who give Circe more power than even mots contemporary writers), Virginia Woolf's Orlando (or hte film of it), cixous' creative works, Adrienne rich's poems,
https://www.thoughtco.com/feminist-literary-criticism-3528960
https://medium.com/cloelia-wcc/homeric-studies-feminism-and-queer-theory-interpreting-helen-and-penelope-ac63b5970628
Postcolonial critique
concepts: how does Odysseus treat the people he meets? what happened to the honourable tradition of hospitality? how might this link to the representation of non-Western cultures in your related text? noble savage? infantalising?
theorists: Said,
Good texts: Poisonwood Bible, Westerns, Tennyson's poems, Maus (graphic novel)
sections to look at: slaughter or the circones, lotus eaters, cyclops
theorists: Said,
Good texts: Poisonwood Bible, Westerns, Tennyson's poems, Maus (graphic novel)
sections to look at: slaughter or the circones, lotus eaters, cyclops
Postmodernism
Concept: very hard to apply to one of the 'original' myths of Western culture, but very easy to choose this if you have a very deconstructed, shifting perspectives, unreliable narrator etc etc as your related text to contrast with the original
Psychoanalytical interpretation
concepts: role of myth in understanding self
theorists: Freud, Jung (esp Jung), cixous (feminist psychological),
Good related texts: Poisonwood bible, dances with wolves, ginsberg's howl
theorists: Freud, Jung (esp Jung), cixous (feminist psychological),
Good related texts: Poisonwood bible, dances with wolves, ginsberg's howl
Queer theory
Concepts: Unlike the Iliad, the Odyssey presents a very heterosexual hero, but you could look at relationships between the men - subtexts that might undercut Odysseus' relationship with women like Circe or Calypso?you might look at some of the wonmen's perspectives that depict the impossibility of heterosexual love in a patriarchal world
theorists: Foucault
Related texts: love in the time of global warming
theorists: Foucault
Related texts: love in the time of global warming
Marxist/socialist critique
concept: odysseus' spurious leadership qualities, easy dismissal of the misfortunes that befall his crew and the shocking events at the homecoming lend themselves well to class analysis,
theorists: Marx, Foucault
sections to look at: homecoming, lotus eaters, any time his sailors die and he is unaffected.
theorists: Marx, Foucault
sections to look at: homecoming, lotus eaters, any time his sailors die and he is unaffected.
??????American Pragmatism?????
?????American Pragmatism:Responding to the European model of Scientific Empiricism and Rationalism championed by Kant, Descartes and Locke, the Pragmatic school was the first American contribution to philosophy. Led by the philosopher / psychologist William James and writer Ralph Waldo Emerson, the American pragmatics valued the importance of gaining knowledge through experience rather than intuition.
Concept: what do we learn through Odysseus' experiences? does he learn anything?
Related texts: Emerson transcendentalists??????
A Tale of a Pub. Reading James Joyce's Ulysses in the context of Irish cultural nationalism.
"The Most Precious Victim": Joyce's "Cyclops" and the Politics of Persecution James Joyce Quarterly, 2008 Michael Spiegel
Random Stuff
"Unlike Achilles, the Iliad protagonist known for his physical strength and prowess in combat, Odysseus earns his victories through trickery and cunning. Odysseus’ cleverness is reinforced throughout the text by the use of epithets accompanying his name. These epithets and their translations include:
- Polymetis: of many counsels
- Polymek
-
- hanos: many-deviced
- Polytropos: of many ways
- Polyphron: many-minded" Anjelika Frey at ThoughtCo
https://brewminate.com/the-mind-of-odysseus-in-the-homeric-odyssey/
https://www.quartoknows.com/blog/quartogifts/odysseus-in-hades-land-of-the-dead
https://qspace.library.queensu.ca/bitstream/handle/1974/1118/Banco_Lindsey_M_200804_PhD.pdf;jsessionid=3C88ADEA12881B215702CF54AE79448F?sequence=1