Iliad & Odyssey

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Iliad Odyssey

• Honors 2101
• Unit 2 Greece

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Rough Outline

• Homer in Ancient Greece
• Themes and Persons
• Illiad
• Odyssey
• Closing Thoughts

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Homer in Ancient Greece

• Earliest Greek Literature
• Written c. 750 BCE from oral trad. (c. 1200 BCE)
• Recited by Rhapsodes
• Epic dactylic hexameter or long poem on
  war/myth
• Cultural Importance for Greeks
• Taken as History
• Hellenic Unity
• Educational Texts

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Greece and Trojan War
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Some Themes

• Glories of War/Adventure
• Reasons for War
• Realistic Descriptions
• Ideals of Heroism
• Areté, timé, and kleos
• Fate Courage
• shame culture
• Others
• Gods Humans
• Individual vs. Society
• Word vs. Deed

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• Areté
• Excellence, virtue, or what makes and individual
  the best or among the best usually some
  combination of physical prowess persuasive
  speech or command.
• Timé
• Honor, material symbol of status among others,
  usually capable of being taken away (prize,
  booty, trophies).
• Kleos
• Glory or Fame, understood as public opinion, or
  what others say or remember.

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Persons in the Iliad

• Acheans
• Achilles Patrocles
• Agamemnon Menalaos
• Odysseus, Ajax, Phoenix

• Trojans
• Hector Alexandros
• Priam, Helen, Andromache
• Gods
• Zeus, Apollo, Aphrodite
• Athena, Hera, Thetis

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Iliad (Book I)

• Wrath of Achilles, Part I
• In medias res Trojan War Plague of Apollo
• Menis Quarrel with Agamemnon
• Consequences
• Thetis Supplication of Zeus
• Glimpse of Olympus
• Is Achilles anger his own fault?

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Thetis supplicant to Zeus
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Iliad (Book VI)

• Behind the Walls of Troy
• Hector as Tragic Hero
• Women and Family Life
• Fate
• Troy Hector
• Trojan Women
• Is Hector a sympathetic hero? Why or why not?

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Iliad (Book IX)

• Embassy to Achilles
• Discourse among equals?
• Odysseus plea
• Phoenixs plea
• Ajaxs parting words
• Is Achilles being unreasonable? Why or why not?

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Death and Heroism

• The prospect of death drives the heroes to pursue
  timé (honor).
• The hero is defined by his(her) action in the
  face of mortality, especially in combat or
  contests.
• And resulting kleos (glory) is the heros only
  immortality.

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Sarpedon declares to Glaukos (Book XII.322-28)

• Man, supposing you and I, escaping this battle,
  would be able to live on forever, ageless,
  immortal, so neither would I myself go on
  fighting in the foremost nor would I urge you
  into the fighting where men win glory. But now,
  seeing that the spirits of death stand close
  about us in their thousands, no man can turn
  aside nor escape them, let us go on and win glory
  for ourselves, or yield it to others.

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Iliad (Book XXI)

• Wrath of Achilles, Part II
• Death of Patrocles and Achilles Armor
• Death of Lycaon a ruthless death
• Death of Hector revenge
• Is Achilles anger inhuman?

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Hector at the Gates of Troy

• Achilles was coming closer, like Enyalius,?the
  warrior god of battle with the shining helmet.?On
  his right shoulder he waved his dreadful
  spear?made of Pelian ash. The bronze around him
  glittered?like a blazing fire or rising sun. At
  that moment, as he watched, Hector began to shake
  in fear.?His courage gone, he could no longer
  stand there.?Terrified, he started running,
  leaving the gate.?Peleus' son went after him,
  sure of his speed on foot.?Just as a mountain
  falcon, the fastest creature?of all the ones
  which fly, swoops down easily?on a trembling
  pigeon as it darts off in fear, the hawk speeding
  after it with piercing cries,?heart driving it to
  seize the prey in just that way?Achilles in his
  fury raced ahead

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Hector faces Achilles

• When they'd approached each other, at close
  quarters,?great Hector of the shining helmet
  spoke out first"I'll no longer try to run away
  from you, son of Peleus, as I did before,
  going?three times in flight around Priam's great
  city.?I lacked the courage then to fight with
  you,?as you attacked. But my heart prompts me
  now?to stand against you face to face once
  more,?whether I kill you, or you kill me.?So come
  here. Let's call on gods to witness,?for they're
  the best ones to observe our pact,?to supervise
  what we two agree on.?If Zeus grants me the
  strength to take your life,?I'll not abuse your
  corpse in any way. I'll strip your celebrated
  armour off, Achilles, then give the body back
  again?to the Achaeans. And you'll do the same."

• Swift-footed Achilles, with a scowl, replied
  "Hector, don't talk to me of our
  agreements.?That's idiotic, like a faithful
  promise?between men and lions. Wolves and
  lambs?don't share a common heart they always
  sense?a mutual hatred for each other.?In just
  that way, it's not possible for us, for you and
  me, to be friends, or, indeed, for there to be
  sworn oaths between us,?till one or other of us
  falls, glutting Ares,?warrior with the bull's
  hide shield, on blood.?You'd best remember all
  your fighting skills.?Now you must declare
  yourself a spearman,?a fearless warrior. You've
  got no escape. Soon Pallas Athena will destroy
  you?on my spear. Right now you'll pay me
  back,?the full price of those sorrows I went
  through when you slaughtered my companions. With
  these words, he hefted his long-shadowed
  spear,?then hurled it.

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Achilles abuses Hectors body

• Then on noble Hector's corpse?he carried out a
  monstrous act. He cut through?the tendons behind
  both feet, from heel to ankle,?threaded them with
  ox-hide thongs, and then tied these?onto his
  chariot, leaving the head to drag behind.?He
  climbed up in his chariot, brought on the
  splendid armour,?then lashed his horses. They
  sped off eagerly, ?dragging Hector. A dust cloud
  rose above him,?his dark hair spread out round
  him, and Hector's head,?once so handsome, was
  covered by the dust, for Zeus?had given him to
  his enemies to dishonour?in his own native land.
  So all his head grew dirty.
• From Book XXII, translated by Ian Johnston
  http//www.mala.bc.ca/johnstoi/homer/iliad_title.
  htm

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Abuse of Hectors Body
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Iliad (Book XXIV)

• Priams Plea
• Achilles grief
• What moved Achilles to release Hectors body?
• Has Achilles finally come to his senses?

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Questions about the Iliad

• What are the chief motivations for war or
  conflict in the Iliad?
• Compare/Contrast Achilles and Hector as
  representing heroic ideals.
• Does the character of Achilles develop over the
  course of the Iliad?
• If the Iliad is about the wrath of Achilles, what
  is the lesson to be learned, if any?
• What relevance, if any, does the Iliad have for
  us now?

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(No Transcript)
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The Odyssey

• Journeys
• Disguise, Deception Craftiness
• Fantastic Voyages
• Women in the Odyssey
• Homecoming Loyalty Order
• Concluding Remarks

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Two Journeys in One Story

• Odysseus and Telemachus
• Fantastic and Worldly
• Narrative Thread Time and Memory
• Theme Heroic Struggles
• Gods/immortality (Bk. V)
• Monsters
• Finding home
• Theme Xenia
• generosity and courtesy towards strangers

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6. Aeolias Island 7. Laestrygonians 8.
Circes Kingdom 9. Land of the Dead 10. Sirens
11. Scylla Charybdis 12. Calypso 13. Ithaca
1. Mt. Olympus 2. Troy 3. Cicones 4. Lotus
Eaters 5. Cyclops
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Disguise, Deception and Craftiness

• Odysseus is polutropan
• of many twists (Bk. I, Proem)
• Odysseus arete
• Cf. Achilles Hector
• Examples
• Nausicaa (Bk. VI)
• Polyphemus (Bk. IX)
• Circe (Bk. X)
• Homecoming (Bk. XXIII)

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Fantastic Voyages

• Horrible and Seductive
• Cyclops (Bk. IX)
• Circes Island (Bk. X)
• Land of the Dead (Bk. XI)
• Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis (Bk. XII)

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Women in the Odyssey

• Seduction and Symbol
• Cf. Women in the Iliad
• The Women
• Calypso
• Nausicaa ( mother)
• Circe
• Penelope

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Land of the Dead (Bk. XI)

• Rites of the Dead
• Vision of the Underworld
• The Message

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Homecoming (Bk. XXIII)

• Disguises at Ithaka
• Now Athena
• Killing the Suitors
• Xenia?
• Penelope Telemachus
• Loyalty and Order

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Concluding Remarks Iliad Odyssey

• Heroic Ideals arete, time, kleos
• Gods and Humans mortality or fate
• Moral and Social Order xenia, arete, women
• Place of Homer in Greece

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Some Paper Topics(See also slide 20)

• Compare the areté of Odysseus with Achilles (or
  hector, Gilgamesh, Moses, etc.). How does the
  quest for honor and glory account for their
  actions? How important is the recognition of
  mortality?
• Compare the women characters from the Iliad and
  Odyssey. Clearly the women characters are more
  prominent in the Odyssey, but in what way are
  they similar or different? What role do women
  play in each epic work?
• What is the role of women in Homer? Clearly they
  represent domestic ideals, but they also
  represent other important values and features in
  the narrative. Explicate what you think of
  Homers us of women characters in the Iliad and
  Odyssey. Are there any interesting modern
  parallels?
• The Odyssey is best known for the fantastic
  series of adventures the Odysseus undergoes. Pick
  one or two episodes and draw modern parallel.
  What is the significance of this episode? Does it
  teach us a lesson or reveal something important
  about the human condition (or just archaic Greek
  values)?
• Odysseus is constantly trying to get home to
  Ithaka. He forsakes a goddess (Calypso) and other
  alluring women (e.g., Circe), so why does he seek
  out home and a reunion with Peneolpe? What does
  this tell us about the virtues of Odysseus?

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• How does Homer portray the relationship between
  gods and humans in the Iliad and Odyssey? What
  roles do the gods play in human life? How does
  this make a difference in the storylines?
• In what way does Odysseus character develop
  during the course of the narrative? Does he
  develop at all? Compare other characters (e.g.,
  Achilles, Gilgamesh, etc.).
• An important cultural concept in the Odyssey is
  xenia generosity and courtesy to strangers,
  especially travelers form afar. What role does it
  play in the narrative? How is it established as a
  key value? Why might hospitality have held more
  significance in Homers time than it does today?
• Draw a comparison between the themes presented in
  any two of the works we have read thus far (Epic
  of Gilgamesh, Genesis, Exodus, Job, Iliad,
  Odyssey). Pick a theme that spans both works and
  discuss how it is similar and/or different, but
  also tell us why this is interesting or
  revealing. Use specific examples to illustrate
  the theme(s) and your main point about its
  treatment in the stories.
• In the Odyssey and the story of Gilgamesh have
  given us two visions of the underworld. What is
  the picture of the underworld we are given in
  these works? Does it resonate with modern
  versions of the underworld? Why is water so
  important? Blood?