Epic and Epic Hero
The Odyssey
Warm up
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What qualities make someone a hero? Can
you think of any modern-day heroes?
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Epic Archetype: An epic hero is a hero
who serves as a representative of qualities
a culture appreciates most.
Epic Literature
Epics are long narratives told in elevated language,
often relating the adventures of larger-than-life heroes.
In some way, epic heroes
embody the values of their
civilizations.
For example, a hero may
demonstrate values of strength,
bravery, or intelligence.
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Elements of Epics
Epics are found in many cultures and share the
following characteristics:
• a physically impressive hero of national
or historical importance
• a vast setting
• a quest or journey in search of
something of value
• the involvement of supernatural forces
• a basis in a specific culture or society
• characters struggling against fate
Epic Characters
The epic hero, who represents the values of a society, is at
the center of every epic.
Epic heroes are exceptional people who undertake
difficult quests or journeys.
Through the journey, heroes aim
to achieve something of value to
themselves or their people.
Epic Characters
Epic heroes may experience many obstacles, or conflicts,
along the way.
These conflicts are sometimes
external, created by forces of
nature or, as in many epics and
myths, the gods.
Epic Characters
Epic heroes also experience internal conflict.
Faced with an internal conflict, the heroes struggle to
overcome their own fears or doubts.
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Tragic Flaw

Epic heroes generally have a tragic flaw:
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HUBRIS: overconfidence and ego that
they can overcome or over challenge
anyone or anything. They often
underestimate their opponents.
Character Foils
Most epic heroes have a foil.
A foil is a character that
stands in stark contrast to
another character.
For example, Superman’s foil
is Lex Luthor, a villain whose
evil contrasts with
Superman’s goodness.
[End of Section]
An Epic and Its Historical Period
We can look at an epic as an encyclopedia of the
manners, customs, and values that bind a civilization
together.
Like myths, epics offer
people a vision of where
they came from, what
their laws and values are,
and their destiny.
[End of Section]
– Goes through the Epic Hero Cycle: Epic heroes
also all follow the same storyline. They go
through the same cycle.
 They are special, or supernatural, from birth.
 They are charged with a quest.
 They go through trials and challenges designed to test
their strength and intelligence.
 Epic heroes go to unnatural worlds that others may
not enter.
 Epic heroes get help from companions.
 Even when they hit a low point, epic heroes always
come back fighting. They have a resurrection and
then they are restored to their rightful place.
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and
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6
Period
Stop here and begin reading “The
Cyclops” Story
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4 ,
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and 7th Period
Continue and take notes on your own
notebook paper.
Paris, a prince of Troy, was chosen to select the most
beautiful Goddess and give her a prize. Aphrodite told
him that she would give him anything he wanted if he
chose her. So he did. He wanted Helen as his prize.
Aphrodite immediately went to work to keep her end of the
bargain. Unfortunately, the most beautiful mortal
woman in the world was Helen, who was married to the
Greek King Menelaus of Sparta.
Aphrodite brought Paris to King Menelaus’s kingdom, and
when Menelaus went away on a trip, Paris wooed Helen,
who actually fell in love with him but was afraid because
of her marriage to King Menelaus. Regardless, it took
little convincing to go to Troy with Paris.
Helen by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
 King Menelaus returned home to
find that Paris had “abducted” his
Helen. Menelaus went to his brother,
Agamemnon. It took several years for
the outraged Menelaus to assemble
an army, and, when he did, kings and
soldiers from all over Greece,
including Achilles and Odysseus,
sailed to Troy to bring back
Helen…and…according to myth,
thus began the TROJAN WAR!!!!
 This story opens in the 10th – and last – year of the Trojan
War. The war is at a stalemate (they can’t get behind that
Trojan wall), and in the Greek camp there is much
dissension amongst the Greeks themselves. The story of
of that dissention and the wrath of Achilles, is the topic
of The Iliad (which ends with a 12 day truce in which both
sides bury and mourn their dead. The focus of The Iliad
is WAR!!!
 In The Odyssey, Homer starts by telling about
the last days of the Trojan War in this second
epic. The story relates that
the man
responsible for the fall of Troy is Odysseus.
Odysseus conceived the plan to use the huge
wooden horse (the Trojan Horse) to get into the
gates of Troy. It worked!!!!! The Greeks defeated
the Trojans.
 Because Odysseus was instrumental in Troy’s destruction, he
angered the gods who were sympathetic to Troy, and they vow
that he will have a long and difficult journey home. This
journey, which takes 10 years, is the subject of Homer’s
The Odyssey.