The Odyssey. Books 9-12
Books 9-12 The Enchanted Realm (vs. Greek culture)
nature vs. civilization
presence of Poseidon (god of nature)
absence of Athena (goddess of the polis)
far West/symbolic death and rebirth
themes include tension between:
A.
Forgetting/Remembering
Lotus-eaters
Circe
Demodocus
Sirens
Calypso
Odysseus
Odysseus’ crew
B.
Good/Bad Hospitality
Laestrygonians
Penelope
Aeolus
Cyclops
Circe
Calypso
Phaeacians
structure
Cedric Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition (288): The Adventures are [a] particularly
elegant [example of ‘geometric design’], grouped as they are around the supreme adventure, the
Journey to the Dead. This central episode ... is carefully framed, first by the two Elpenor
episodes and then by the two scenes with Circe. For the rest, the poet summarizes two out of
every three adventures rather briefly, and dramatizes one at greater length, so that the pattern of
Odysseus’ narrative is as follows:
Ciconians
Lotophagi
CYCLOPS (hero who inflicts suffering through lack of restraint)
Aeolus
Laestrygonians
CIRCE
Elpenor
NEKYIA
Elpenor
CIRCE
Sirens
Scylla—Charybdis
THRINACIA (hero who attempts to save others through restraint)
Scylla—Charybdis
Calypso
Note that:
1. the preceding sequence (of the Apologoi) is anapestic
2. most acts in Apologoi involve escaping and/or acts of restraint, not confrontation, and
typically heroic acts of confrontation lead to suffering
3. this new heroism underlined especially in the framing episodes of the Cyclopeia and
Thrinacia, both of which contain the motif of entrapment with livestock belonging to
keepers of herds, who both appeal to a god to punish men who failed to exercise selfrestraint
Book 9 (Ciconians/Lotus-eaters/Cyclops)
Odysseus the strategic poet
procurement of gifts
Ciconians
Odysseus starts out leading about 600 men in 12 ships
Iliadic heroism now = reckless acts of folly (cf. proem)
raid, and gorging on food and wine (parallels suitors)-death
Lotus -eaters
Egyptian opium trade
"munching on lotus" like animals
theme of improper cuisine-loss of homecoming (through eating or being eaten)
for eating, see also:
Cyclopeia (his sheep and other food)
Circe (her drugs)
Thrinakia (cattle of Helios)
cf. suitors
for being eaten, see:
Cyclops
Laistrygones
Scylla and Charybdis
see theme of forgetting
Golden Age/Paradise imagery
total indolence vs. heroic Strebung(German)
Cyclops
related to/contrast with Phaeacians-first rung on evolutionary latter
new heroism: Odysseus polutropos/polumetis/polutlas (vs. Iliadic heroism)
frame reinforcing efficacy of new heroism:
Odysseus the Iliadic hero-death (of six men)
the passive hero (metis over bie)-escape and survival
wine
blinding
outis/metis
self-restraint (cf. words of Tiresias, Book 11)
Odysseus the Iliadic hero (boasting)-loss of all but one ship due to enmity of
Poseidon
Golden Age imagery (anti-Olympian); structuralist interpretation
note: Poseidon isolated from Olympians
Book 10 (Aeolus/Laestrygonians/Circe)
Aeolus
lack of self-restraint
Laestrygonians
further up evolutionary ladder from Cyclops, below Phaeacians
improper cuisine-threat to homecoming, eat 500 men!
Circe
story pattern:
littoral goddess arranges interview with mantic figure
cf. Menelaus in Book 4
female entrapment: cf. Kalypso, Penelope, Helen, Sirens, etc.
improper cuisine threat to homecoming-drug
crew become animals (cf. Lotus-eaters)
Odysseus' restraint (with help of molu), but
Odysseus succumbs to temptation of sex (Paradise/indolence/self-indulgence)
Elpenor (ring composition)
Book 11 (The Nekuia, or Underworld)
story pattern: mantic introduced by littoral goddess
Tiresias' programmatic satire (echoes proem)-new heroism vs. Thrinakia
Anticleia: grief and anger vs. suitors
Book 12 (Circe, Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, Thrinakia, Scylla and Charybdis, Calypso,
Scheria and Phaeacians-ring composition)
Circe (and Elpenor)-ring composition
Circe's advice-new heroism vs. Scylla and Charybdis
Sirens
theme of remembering/forgetting
Odysseus' self-restraint
Scylla and Charybdis
six men lost from last ship
uselessness of Iliadic heroism
improper cuisine vs. homecoming
Thrinakia (and the cattle of Helios)
devolution down food chain, culminating in cattle
improper cuisine-no homecoming
crew vs. Odysseus' restraint (though note his narcolepsy, cf. Aeolus)
all men lost
Calypso
Phaeacians and Scheria (back to)-ring composition
Conclusions on the Apologoi (Books 9-12)
metis
civilization
vs.
vs.
bie
nature
categories in column on left associated with subordination of the individual to the group
also with suppression of individual identity; so too in Books 12-24