Homer’s The Odyssey
Must you have battle in your heart forever?
The bloody toil of combat? Old contender,
will you not yield to the immortal gods?
From The Odyssey, Book 12
Notes for The Odyssey
• The Odyssey is an ____ poem. It has
more than ____ lines and is divided into
____ books.
Notes for The Odyssey
• The Odyssey is an epic poem. It has
more than ____ lines and is divided into
____ books.
Notes for The Odyssey
• The Odyssey is an epic poem. It has
more than 12000 lines and is divided into
__ books.
Notes for The Odyssey
• The Odyssey is an epic poem. It has
more than 12000 lines and is divided into
24 books.
Notes for The Odyssey
• The Odyssey is an epic poem. It has
more than 12000 lines and is divided into
24 books.
• Epics address universal concerns:
– Good and Evil
– Life and Death
– Sin and Redemption
Some characteristics of an epic:
• 1) The story is set in many locations, real
or imaginary, across a wide area.
• 2) The hero is an important historical or
legendary character of high social rank – a
king or a prince, for example.
• 3) The hero is pitted against overwhelming
odds and must be strong and courageous.
• 4) Supernatural events play an important
role in the plot.
• 5) The story is told in language that is
formal and grand but also simple and
clear.
The hero in The Odyssey is Odysseus.
Armond Asante in The Odyssey
Sean Bean in Troy
Marble carving of
Odysseus from 2nd
century BC - Greece
The hero in The Odyssey is Odysseus.
He is from _______________ which is
located _____________________________.
Armond Asante in The Odyssey
Sean Bean in Troy
Marble carving of
Odysseus from 2nd
century BC - Greece
The hero in The Odyssey is Odysseus.
He is from the island of Ithaca which is
located _____________________________.
Armond Asante in The Odyssey
Sean Bean in Troy
Marble carving of
Odysseus from 2nd
century BC - Greece
The hero in The Odyssey is Odysseus.
He is from the island of Ithaca which is
located off the west coast of Greece.
Armond Asante in The Odyssey
Sean Bean in Troy
Marble carving of
Odysseus from 2nd
century BC - Greece
The Trojan War
Who?
• Menelaus, King of Sparta, and the kings and
soldiers of Greece sail to Troy.
•
•
Greeks: Agamemnon – leader of Greek Army
Achilles – Greatest Greek warrior – one physical weakness
Odysseus – “The Cunning One”
Trojans: Priam – King of Troy
Paris – Son of Priam
Hector – Troy’s greatest warrior, son of Priam
The Trojan War
Why?
• Paris kidnapped Helen, wife of Menelaus, who then sails
to kill Paris and destroy Troy, and retrieve his wife.
• Helen is known as the “most beautiful woman in the
world,” but is also forever associated with treachery and
infidelity.
• Shakespeare wrote of her: “the face that launched a
thousand ships.”
The Trojan War
Where?
• The battles take place on the coasts and lands
surrounding Troy.
• Today this land is the country of Turkey.
• When?
• 1200 BC = When the events told in Homer’s
poems are supposed to have occurred.
• This means these stories have been told for over
3200 years.
• 900-700 BC = The oral tradition is thought to be
first written down by Homer.
The Adventures of Odysseus
Who?
• Odysseus and his men – 12
ships and 720 men leave
Troy and head for home.
• Rather than soldiers, they
now must battle monsters
and enchanting women.
• Meanwhile, Penelope waits
for him at home while their
son, Telemachus sails the
sea looking for his father.
The Adventures of Odysseus
Why?
• Odysseus angers the gods who were on the
side of Troy, and one god who was on his side.
They have decided that he must suffer.
The Adventures of Odysseus
Where?
• The Mediterranean Sea – this was the entire known
world for the ancient Greeks.
When?
The 10 years immediately following the Trojan war.
The Olympian Gods and Goddesses
• The ancient Greeks believed that the gods
and goddesses were very “human” and
their pettiness, jealousies, and anger
caused humans to suffer.
• The Trojan war was prolonged because
the gods took sides during the conflict.
Gods Siding with Troy
• Aphrodite
Goddess of Love
and Beauty
Protector of Paris
Gods Siding with Troy
Ares
Greek God of War
- Greatly disliked by Greeks
- Defeated by Achilles in
battle and saved by his sister,
Aphrodite.
Gods Siding with Troy
• Apollo
God of light and the sun;
truth and prophecy;
archery; medicine and
healing; music, poetry,
and the arts.
Most known for sun and
archery, and music.
Gods Siding with Greece
• Athena
Goddess of Wisdom and War
Protector of Odysseus
Athens takes its name from her
Gods Siding with Greece
• Hermes
Messenger of the Gods
Gods Siding with Greece
• Poseidon
God of the Sea and Earthquakes
Inventor of horses
Second only to Zeus in power
Zeus
•
•
•
•
•
King of the Gods
God of the sky and thunder
Also the god of hospitality
Neutral in the Trojan war
Known for his infidelities
against his wife, Hera
From “Bureaucrats & Barbarians: The
Greek Dark Ages” by Richard Hooker
• “No other texts in the Western imagination
occupy as central a position in the selfdefinition of Western culture as in the two
epic poems of Homer, The Iliad and The
Odyssey. They both concern the great
defining moment of Greek culture, the
Trojan War.”
From “Bureaucrats & Barbarians: The
Greek Dark Ages” by Richard Hooker
• “If the Greeks regarded the Trojan War as
the defining moment of their culture, they
did so because of the poetry of Homer. It
would not be unfair to regard the Homeric
poems as the single most important texts
in Greek culture.”
From “Bureaucrats & Barbarians: The
Greek Dark Ages” by Richard Hooker
• “Whether or not this war really occurred, or
occurred as the Greeks narrate it, is a
relatively unanswerable question. We
know that such a war did take place
around a city that quite likely was Troy,
that Troy was destroyed utterly, but
beyond that it’s all speculation.”