Homework Question
Copy this down on a sheet of lined
paper and answer it as homework. If
you kept it, attach the map you
made when we first started reading.
How is Boo Radley’s perspective of
the street different than Scout’s?
What is he seeing that she isn’t? How
is that valuable? Would you map
have looked differently if Boo was
the narrator? How?
Epic, Tragedy,
Tragic Hero Notes
The Odyssey
March 2015
Epic
Write one sentence: What does
the word epic mean to you?
Write one sentence: How would
you use the word epic in every
day life?
Epic
An epic is a type of poetry.
It is usually an entire story told in
verse (poetic) form.
“a long poem, typically one
derived from ancient oral tradition,
narrating the deeds and
adventures of heroic or legendary
figures or the history of a nation.”
This week, we will start reading The
Odyssey. It is an EPIC poem.
Tragedy
Write one sentence: What does
it mean for something to be
“tragic”?
Write one sentence: What is a
tragedy you have faced in your
life?
Brainstorm and write down 5
examples of movies that you
would consider tragedies.
Tragedy
 “an event causing great suffering,
destruction, and distress, such as a
serious accident, crime, or natural
catastrophe.”
 “a play dealing with tragic events and
having an unhappy ending, esp. one
concerning the downfall of the main
character.”
 In The Odyssey, a man named
Odysseus spends ten years trying to get
home from war to see his wife.
Throughout the epic, he faces tragic
circumstances.
Tragic Hero
 A tragic hero “is a person of noble
birth with heroic or potentially heroic
qualities. This person is fated by the
Gods or by some supernatural force
to doom and destruction or at least
to great suffering. But
the hero struggles mightily against this
fate and this cosmic conflict wins our
admiration.”
 What this means is that a tragic hero
is someone heroic and respectable
with at least one recognizable flaw
that causes him/her to struggle and
face challenges.
Tragic Hero
By that definition, can you think
of any tragic heroes from movies
or TV shows you watch?
Tragic Flaw
The tragic flaw is “the character
defect that causes the downfall
of the protagonist of a tragedy”
1 sentence: What does that
mean?
What are the tragic flaws of the
characters you said were tragic
heroes?
The Odyssey
The Trojan War
Helen of Troy
The Trojan Horse
Odysseus, Achilles, Ajax
Paris, Hector
Greek gods and goddesses.
Athena
Athena is probably the most
important goddess in The Odyssey
Athena respects and helps
Odysseus.
She is the goddess of wisdom.
Write one sentence: What does it
mean to be wise?
Write one sentence: How is being
wise different than being smart?
Greek Mythology
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Zeus
Hera
Poseidon
Athena
Aphrodite
Hephaestus
Dionysius
Demeter
Apollo
Artemis
Ares
Hades
Hermes
The muses
Mythological
Creatures
The Oral Tradition
 In Ancient Greece many stories were recited over
and over by different people for many years.
 These stories were about the gods and the heroes.
 In order to make them easier to remember, the were
often recited in poetic form because the rhyme
made them easier to memorize.
 Due to the oral nature of the stories, each poet may
have presented slightly different versions of events. As
people passed on the stories, they changed slowly
over time.
 HOMER is not the author of the Odyssey, he is just the
person who recorded the poem after many years. So
essentially, the version we read is an English
translation of Homer’s version of the story.