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Please:
 take
your seat
 take out a pen and your notebook
 be ready to write when the music
ends.
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What does the term “epic hero” mean to you
(“epic hero” not “epic fail”ure)? Tell me what
you can about an epic hero from any literary
genre you are familiar with (movies, books,
songs, poetry, television).
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QuickWrite
Collect Literary Analysis Papers
Return R&J exams
Library
Anticipating The Odyssey
The Epic Epic
Who was Homer?
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Please stack your papers by table
Remember to include
Rough Draft
 Peer Edit Half-Sheet
 Final Draft
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 These need not be stapled, but have them close by.
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Any questions or concerns about how
Thursday’s class or peer/self editing went?
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If you missed questions:
6
 10
 14
 25
 39
 46
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 Pleas circle the red letter answer printed next to it.
 Add up the number of red letters circled and write +X
near your name on the side.
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Please bring your copies of Romeo and Juliet!
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http://carlos.emory.edu/ODYSSEY/GREECE
/welcome.html
Gods/Goddesses, Geography, Victory and
Warfare, Epic
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Epic. An extended narrative poem recounting
actions, travels, adventures, and heroic
episodes and written in a high style (with
ennobled diction, for example). It may be
written in hexameter verse, especially dactylic
hexameter (six dactyls [one stressed, two
unstressed]), and it may have twelve books or
twenty four books.
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The first line of Homer’s Iliad—“Sing, goddess,
the wrath of Peleus’ son Achilles”—provides
an example… in Greek:
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μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεά, Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
Dividing the line into metrical units:
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μῆνιν ἄ | ειδε, θε | ά, Πη | ληϊά | δεω Ἀχι | λῆος
Dactyl (-- u u), dactyl, spondee (-- --), dactyl, dactyl,
trochee (-- u).
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Characteristics of the classical epic include these:
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The main character or protagonist is heroically larger
than life, often the source and subject of legend or a
national hero
The deeds of the hero are presented without favoritism,
revealing his failings as well as his virtues
The action, often in battle, reveals the more-than-human
strength of the heroes as they engage in acts of heroism
and courage
The setting covers several nations, the whole world, or
even the universe
The episodes, even though they may be fictional, provide
an explanation for some of the circumstances or events in
the history of a nation or people
The gods and lesser divinities play an active role in the
outcome of actions
All of the various adventures form an organic whole,
where each event relates in some way to the central theme
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Typical in epics is a set of conventions (or epic
machinery). Among them are these:
Poem begins with a statement of the theme ("Arms
and the man I sing")
 Invocation to the muse or other deity ("Sing,
goddess, of the wrath of Achilles")
 Story begins in medias res (in the middle of things)
 Catalogs (of participants on each side, ships,
sacrifices)
 Histories and descriptions of significant items (who
made a sword or shield, how it was decorated, who
owned it from generation to generation)
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More epic machinery:
Epic simile (a long simile where the image becomes
an object of art in its own right as well as serving to
clarify the subject).
 Frequent use of epithets ("Aeneas the true"; "rosyfingered Dawn"; "tall-masted ship")
 Use of patronymics (calling son by father's name):
"Anchises' son"
 Long, formal speeches by important characters
 Journey to the underworld
 Use of the number three (attempts are made three
times, etc.)
 Previous episodes in the story are later recounted
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Homer, Iliad
Homer, Odyssey
Virgil, Aeneid
Milton, Paradise Lost
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Modern examples????
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In the Western classical tradition Homer is the
author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered
as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics
are at the beginning of the Western canon of
literature, and have had an enormous influence on
the history of literature. When he lived is
controversial. Herodotus estimates that Homer
lived 400 years before Herodotus' own time, which
would place him at around 850 BC; while other
ancient sources claim that he lived much nearer to
the supposed time of the Trojan War, in the early
12th Century BC.
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The main subtopics of the Homeric Question are:
"Who is Homer?"
 "Are the epics of multiple or single authorship?"
 "By whom, when, where, and under what circumstances
were the poems composed?”
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To these questions the possibilities of modern
textual criticism and archaeological answers have
added a few more:
"How reliable is the tradition embodied in the Homeric
poems?"
 "How old are the oldest elements in Homeric poetry
which can be dated with certainty?"
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Please read Books 1 and 2 of The Odyssey
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whauser84@gmail.com