From Tragedy to Comedy
HUM 2051: Civilization I
Fall 2014
Dr. Perdigao
September 3-5, 2014
Decoding Homer’s Epics
• Warriors struggle to be remembered through timé, esteem
• Some read The Iliad as tragic, The Odyssey as comic
• Zeus sends Hermes (god of messages)—“hermetic” (that which is secret or
sealed), freed from Calypso
• Conventions of the Epic:
Invocation to the muse
Beginning in medias res
Use of Homeric epithets
Use of Homeric or epic similes
Use of catalogues
Long set speeches by major characters
• Here, “the man of twists and turns”—like the plot
Core Elements
• Chronology: more complicated, less linear
• Journey: education/demonstration
• Disorder: order (restored)
Staging The Odyssey
• Begins late—7-8 years into Odysseus’s travels, when maximum pressure is
exerted on home island
• Reason for starting there—house in ruin vs. house restored, begs question
of How do you keep a kingdom, a family, in order?
• The Iliad=war; The Odyssey=peace
• How things are kept in order during peace time
• Agon still remains—struggle as would be in wartime, here eris in time of
peace and war
• The Odyssey ends with restoration of order, The Iliad with a moment of
peace but amidst war
Structure of The Odyssey
• Story of homecoming
• Domestic narrative
• Figuring out what to do when war is over, how do you go back home
• First stories—Telemakia—of Telemachus, with Odysseus absent
• Telemachus—insight—like his father, recognizes the goddess Athena
• Mentes/Mentor
• Penelope compared to Odysseus in his sphere, is as skillful as he is,
weaving, unweaving plot, “twists and turns”
Mirrors, Foils to Odysseus
• “Perhaps he will hear some news and make his name throughout the
mortal world” (208)—Telemachus destined for greatness as well, his
“unsung future” (211)
• Antinous, Eurymachus
• Nestor, Pisistratus: Pylos
• Menelaus, Helen: Sparta
• Helen’s story (244, 243): Gives men “heart’s-ease” to “forget all our pains,”
tells of how her heart “had changed”
• Telemachus says, “remember his story now, tell me the truth!” (229, 111; 247,
368) to Nestor, Menelaus
• Old Man of the Sea—Proteus (248-250): lion, serpent, panther, wild boar,
water, tree, then tells stories of Ajax, Agamemnon, Odysseus
• Agamemnon as parallel to Odysseus—behaviors as opposite, homecoming,
treachery
Reframing
• Calypso’s offering of immortality, beauty, rejected by Odysseus—Greek
values asserted (265), leaves Ogygia
• Ino
• Athena’s intervention against Poseidon
• Phaeacians, Nausicaa, transformation, Alcinous, Arete
• Book VII, Odysseus takes over own story (285)
• Story of seven years with Calypso
• “long-enduring great Odysseus”
• Broadsea’s challenge
• Demodocus’ stories (Book VIII) (“a man who knows what suffering is”
[299])
• To “sing the famous deeds of fighting heroes” (289, 86), retells The Iliad,
brings Odysseus to tears
• Story of Aphrodite and Ares (294, 300), net as trap
• Story of Trojan horse (299)
• End of Book VIII, returns to Odysseus as storyteller
On Civilization
• Circe, Aeaea, as captive as well but “never won the heart inside me” as
“nothing is as sweet as a man’s own country” (302, 37-38)
• Lotus-eaters, desire to linger, to forget (304)
• Cyclops—“no meeting place for council, no laws either . . . each a law to
himself, ruling his wives and children, / not a care in the world for any
neighbor” (304, 127-128)
• “What are they—violent, savage, lawless? / or friendly to strangers, godfearing men?” (305, 195)
• “We’re suppliants—at your mercy! . . . strangers are sacred” (308, 305)
• Play with naming, Nobody; “I was already plotting” (311, 469)