Notes on Homer and his epic poems

THE ODYSSEY

• May have lived sometime between 850 BCE and early 1200 BCE

• Much of his life is a mystery

• He probably lived closer to the 850 BCE date

• The Iliad and The Odyssey both date from around this time

• The poems may have been created over a long time, even by multiple people.

• There is no proof that “Homer” even existed.

• Emperor Hadrian asked at Delphi about Homer.

• The prophecy said he was the son of Telemachus, and grandson of Odysseus

• “Homer” could come from words meaning either “hostage,” or “blind.”

HOMER

Idealized Portrait of Homerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homer

• Aristotle mentions him in Poetics

• Homer focused on a single, unified theme or action in both stories, which was unique at that time

• Used dactylic hexameter, which doesn’t work in English

• Six (6) feet per line

• Dactyl: three syllables, the first accented

• Just for a handful of silver he left us Just for a riband to stick in his coat

• (Browning) first two feet are dactyls.

• This makes Homer’s writing seem to flow quickly

• Characterized by, “Rapidity or ease of movement, plainness of expression, and plainness of thought” (Arnold, Wikipedia.org).

HOMER’S STYLE

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Homer_Statue_Munich.jpg

• This story precedes the action of The Odyssey

• Possibly based on history, to a degree

• Depicts the actions of the Trojan War

• Covers only a few weeks at the end of the war, but mentions other preceding events

• Helen, wife of Menelaus is “kidnapped” by Paris of Troy

• Ten years of war ensue

• Featured the hero Achilles, who is killed at the end of the war

• Also featured Agamemnon

THE ILIAD

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Iliad_VIII_245-253_in_cod_F205%2C_Milan%2C_Biblioteca_Ambrosiana%2C_late_5c_or_early_6c.jpg

The first work of Western Literature!

• Non-linear structure

• Most of Odysseus’s adventures are told by him to the Phaeacians

• Covers Odysseus’s ten year voyage home from the Trojan War

• Translated from the Greek

• Like The Iliad, written in oral style

• Lots of repetition, to help the teller memorize the story

• Odysseus and his story appear in Dante’s Inferno, Joyce and Tennyson’s Ulysses, and even in modern films

THE ODYSSEYhttp://towerreview.wordpress.com/2011/01/26/playlists-for-fictional-characters/

• Greeks had many heroes

• Originally meant “protector,” like the warriors at Troy (on both sides). Later came to refer only to dead people who were worshipped

• More than human, less than a god

• The line between hero and god was blurred

• Some common traits

• Circumstances of conception are unusual

• An attempt is made at his birth to kill him

• Reared by foster-parents in a far country

• Meets a mysterious death

• Body is not buried

• Leaves no successors

GREEK HERO CULT

Heracles (http://boysblogongreekgods.blogspot.com/2010/06/heracles.html)

• “Long narrative poem in elevated style presenting characters of high position in adventures forming an organic whole through their relation to a central heroic figure and through their development of episodes important to the history of a nation or race” (Harmon and Holman via wikipedia.org).

• Begins with an invocation to a muse

• Epic invocation

• It starts with a statement of the theme

• Contains long lists

• Epic catalogue

• Features long and formal speeches.

• Shows divine intervention on human affairs.

• "Star" heroes that embody the values of the civilization.

EPIC POETRY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_poetry

• Epic poems were written to be memorized and performed

• There are a lot of repeated phrases

• They use stock phrases, like “rosy-fingered dawn,” or “wine-dark sea” rather than original phrases.

• There is usually a cyclical journey, or quest

• The purest form of the “Hero’s Journey”

EPIC POETRY (CONT.)

Cuneiform script from Mesopotamiahttp://www-news.uchicago.edu/releases/03/oi/photos.html