The Odyssey
Homer
Homer




800 BC
Was blind
Was a minstrel/rhapsode (a traveling singer of
tales)
Rhapsodes were
 Entertainers
 Mythmakers
 Historians
Homer
Created The Iliad
 An epic about the Trojan War—Troy vs.
Greece
 Created The Odyssey
 An epic about Odysseus’ way home to
Ithaca after the Trojan War
 Homer was best at bringing heroes to life

Epic
A story poem about a great hero who
performs daring deeds requiring
superhuman courage and strength
 One of the oldest literary forms
 Examples: The Iliad and The Odyssey
 In Greek epics, gods and goddesses get
involved in human lives

Epic
Recited from memory by rhapsodes in
banquet halls
 Passed down by minstrels for centuries
 Presents the adventures of one
 His fate tied with the fate of an entire
nation

Epic
Epic poets gathered and borrowed from
well-known legends and epics
 Characters and places may be changed
 Minstrels used many stock phrases
(repeated phrases)
 This helped with memorization

Trojan War

No one knows the cause for sure
 Scholars—Greeks controlling the trade
route
 Myth—it was the result of a woman
 Trojan prince, Paris, kidnapped Helen,
beautiful queen of Sparta (Greece)
Trojan War
The Iliad is based on the story of the Trojan
War
 10 years long
 Fought outside the walled city of Troy for
9 years
 In the 9th year, the Greeks suffered the
death of the great warrior, Achilles

Achilles
Hero of The Iliad
 Mom dipped him in the River Styx to make
him invulnerable
 Missed his heels
 Shot by Paris with poisoned arrow
 “Achilles’ Heel” = a weakness, a vulnerable
spot

Trojan War
Odysseus, known for wit, had a plan to gain
entrance into the walled city
 Built a large wooden horse and left it
outside the city (peace offering)
 Greeks were hiding inside; the rest
sailed away, pretending to give up

Trojan War
Trojans brought the horse inside
 When Trojans slept, Greeks opened gates to
waiting armies
 Slaughtered Trojans, took slaves, burned
city to the ground

Trojan War
Gods were angry
 Violated Trojan temples
 Failed to make sacrifices to the gods for
their victory
 Ruins of Troy are in modern-day Turkey
and date back to 1200 BC

The Odyssey
Odysseus’s ten-year journey home
 Gods caused storms
 Many men killed in other disasters
 Meanwhile, his homeland, Ithaca, is in
trouble
 Suitors living in his home, pursuing his
wife
 Plan to kill his son, Telemachus

The Odyssey

Translated from Greek to English
 The meter fit Greek language better
 Doesn’t have the musical quality it once
did
 Our text has an abridged version (a lot of
information has been omitted)