People and Themes in Homer's Odyssey

Literary Criticism / By /
People and Themes in Homer's Odyssey

Author: Agathe Thornton

Publisher: Routledge

ISBN: 9781317694632

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 178

View: 436

Published in 1970, this important work interprets the poem with a focus on the idiosyncrasies of its originally oral composition. In part I, the main themes of the Odyssey such as ‘guest-friendship’ and ‘testing’ are investigated. The incorporation of these and other themes, such as ‘omens’ and the ‘homecomings of the Achaeans’, into the dramatic construction of the whole epic is also examined. In Part II, the main characters of the Odyssey are described: the Suitors, Telemachus, Odysseus and Penelope. So too are Theoclymenus and Laertes, whom traditional criticism has maligned or disregarded. The analysis of the characters tries to illumine features which are challenging for the contemporary reader. In the conclusion, the ‘plan’ of the Odyssey is reconstructed. The author argues that it would probably have been performed over the course of three days: two sessions each day, with each recitation maintaining its own artistic unity.

Reading the Odyssey

Literary Criticism / By /
Reading the Odyssey

Author: Seth L. Schein

Publisher: Princeton University Press

ISBN: 9780691214146

Category: Literary Criticism

Page:

View: 753

This wide-ranging collection makes available to specialists and nonspecialists alike important critical work on the Odyssey produced during the last half century. The ten essays address five major concerns: the poem's programmatic representation of social and religious institutions and values; its transformation of folktales and traditional stories into epic adventures; its representation of gender roles and, in particular, of Penelope; its narrative strategies and form; and its relation to the Iliad, especially to that epic's distinctive conception of heroism. In the introduction, Seth L. Schein describes the poetic background to the work and suggests a variety of interpretive approaches, some of which are developed in the essays that follow. These essays include previously published work by Jean-Pierre Vernant, Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Pietro Pucci, and Charles P. Segal. There also are a new essay by Laura M. Slatkin, two revised and expanded ones by Nancy Felson-Rubin and Michael N. Nagler, and three appearing in English for the first time by Uvo Hlscher, Karl Reinhardt, and Vernant. The result is a collection that juxtaposes older, often hard-to-find articles with significant newer pieces in a way that allows for a fruitful dialogue among them.

A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey: Introduction and Books I-VIII

Literary Criticism / By /
A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey: Introduction and Books I-VIII

Author: Alfred Heubeck

Publisher: OUP Oxford

ISBN: 0198147473

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 412

View: 319

This is the first instalment of a three-volume commentary in English, compiled by an international team of scholars and first published in Italian under the auspices of the Fondazione Lorenzo Valla. In this volume the commentary by West (Books I-IV) and Hainsworth (Books V-VIII) is preceded byan introduction which discusses previous research on the Odyssey, the nature of the poem and its relation to the Iliad, the epic dialect, and the transmission of the text. Book VI is a regular GCSE set text.

Homer's Odyssey

Language Arts & Disciplines / By /
Homer's Odyssey

Author: Lillian Eileen Doherty

Publisher: Oxford Readings in Classical S

ISBN: 9780199233328

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 374

View: 984

This volume assembles sixteen authoritative articles on Homer's Odyssey that have appeared over the last thirty years. A wide variety of interpretative strategies are represented, including, in addition to traditional close readings, the approaches of comparative anthropology, narratology, feminism, and audience-oriented criticism. Papers have been selected for their clarity and accessibility, and each is informed by close attention to philological and textual detail. A full glossary and list of abbreviations have been included, and a specially written introduction puts the selections in a wider context by giving an overview of major strands in the interpretation of Homer in the second half of the twentieth century.

A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey

Literary Criticism / By /
A Commentary on Homer's Odyssey

Author: Alfred Heubeck

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 0198721447

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 316

View: 404

In the second volume, the commentaries by Heubeck (Books IX-XII) and Hoekstra (Books XIII-XVI) are both preceded by introductions, with Hoekstra paying special attention to diction in the Odyssey and the tradition of epic diction in general. The introductions and commentary have beenthoroughly revised and adapted to the text of T. W. Allen in the Oxford Classical Text series.

The Odyssey

Literary Collections / By /
The Odyssey

Author: Homer

Publisher: Oxford University Press

ISBN: 9780191646515

Category: Literary Collections

Page: 448

View: 326

'Tell me, Muse, of the man of many turns, who was driven far and wide after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy' Twenty years after setting out to fight in the Trojan War, Odysseus is yet to return home to Ithaca. His household is in disarray: a horde of over 100 disorderly and arrogant suitors are vying to claim Odysseus' wife Penelope, and his young son Telemachus is powerless to stop them. Meanwhile, Odysseus is driven beyond the limits of the known world, encountering countless divine and earthly challenges. But Odysseus is 'of many wiles' and his cunning and bravery eventually lead him home, to reclaim both his family and his kingdom. The Odyssey rivals the Iliad as the greatest poem of Western culture and is perhaps the most influential text of classical literature. This elegant and compelling new translation is accompanied by a full introduction and notes that guide the reader in understanding the poem and the many different contexts in which it was performed and read.

Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey

Philosophy / By /
Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey

Author: Sheila Murnaghan

Publisher: Lexington Books

ISBN: 9781461734024

Category: Philosophy

Page: 150

View: 177

Disguise and Recognition in the Odyssey reveals the significance of the Odyssey's plot, in particular the many scenes of recognition that make up the hero's homecoming and dramatize the cardinal values of Homeric society, an aristocratic culture organized around recognition in the broader senses of honor, privilege, status, and fame. Odysseus' identity is seen to be rooted in his family relations, geographical origins, control of property, participation in the social institutions of hospitality and marriage, past actions, and ongoing reputation. At the same time, Odysseus' dependence on the acknowledgement of others ensures attention to multiple viewpoints, which makes the Odyssey more than a simple celebration of one man's preeminence and accounts in part for the poem's vigorous afterlife. The theme of disguise, which relies on plausible lies, highlights the nature of belief and the power of falsehood and creates the mixture of realism and fantasy that gives the Odyssey its distinctive texture. The book contains a pioneering analysis of the role of Penelope and the questions of female agency and human limitation raised by the critical debate about when exactly she recognizes that Odysseus has come home.

The "Odyssey" in Athens

Literary Criticism / By /
The

Author: Erwin F. Cook

Publisher: Cornell University Press

ISBN: 9781501723506

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 232

View: 923

A study in poetic interaction, The "Odyssey" in Athens explores the ways in which narrative structure and parallels within and between epic poems create or disclose meaning. Erwin F. Cook also broadens the scope of this intertextual approach to include the relationship of Homeric epic to ritual. Specifically he argues that the Odyssey achieved its form as a written text within the context of Athenian civic cults during the reign of Peisistratos. Focusing on the prologue and the Apologoi (Books 9–12), Cook shows how the traditional Greek polarity between force and intelligence informs the Odyssean narrative at all levels of composition. He then uses this polarity to explain instances of Odyssean self-reference, allusions to other epic traditions—in particular the Iliad—and interaction between the poem and its performance context in Athenian civic ritual. This detailed structural analysis, with its insights into the circumstances and meaning of the Odyssey's composition, will lead to a new understanding of the Homeric epics and the tradition they evoked.