Family traits: "resourceful Odysseus;" "thoughtful Telemachos"; "circumspect Penelope"
     p.277: "much-enduring great Odysseus was happy/ because she beguiled gifts out of them, and enchanted their spirits/ with blandishing words, while her own mind had other intentions"
     p. 80: Telemachos to Menelaos: "‘let the gift you give me be something that can be stored up./ I will not take the horses to Ithaka, but will leave them/ here, for . . . there is plenty of clover here, . . ./ There are no wide courses in Ithaka, there is no meadow . . .'"
     "He spoke, and Menelaos of the great war cry smiled on him,/ and stroked him with his hand and called him by name and spoke to him:/ ‘You are of true blood, dear child, in the way you reason.'"

Narrative Structure: Like the Iliad, the Odyssey begins in the tenth year. Unlike the Iliad, however, which chronicles just a few weeks in the last year of the Trojan War, the Odyssey journeys back and forth in time, utilizing techniques of delay, digression or excursus, and elaboration.
     The poem begins with the rapid location of Odysseus in place and time, but then switches to Telemachos for the first four books (Telemachy).
     Both the Telemachy and Odysseus's Wanderings are in some sense journeys of identity. Both learn from their experiences (in Odysseus's case, often in a negative sense), whereas Iliadic heroes usually die from their experiences.

1) journey of education v. journey of homecoming
2 homeless v. homeless
3) grieving for Odysseus v. grieving for Odysseus
4) recognition/ self-knowledge (his father's son) v. recognition/ self-knowledge (remembering who he is: not only sacker of cities, he is of the crafty designs, Nobody, but also Telemachos's father, Laertes's son, Penelope's husband, and king of Ithaka)

Consider how the disordered chronology of the first half functions as a trope (what's a trope?) for Odysseus's own lapse from time. That is, on Kalypso's island primarily, but also in his wanderings in the magical lands, time has in some sense been suspended for him. The second half of the text, however, adopts a chronologically-ordered, Iliadic time scheme that is appropriate for Odysseus's re-entry into the human world.

Storytelling: As we've noted, the telling of stories is enormously important to the form and content, the structure and theme of the Odyssey. With a few exceptions (notably, Penelope's story of her dream of the geese; Eumaios's story of his kidnapping, and the narrator's story of Odysseus's scar), the stories fall into four types: 1) the Nostoi (the Trojan War heroes' stories of their return home from Troy); 2) Odysseus's stories of his great wanderings; 3) Narrator's account of Odysseus's homecoming from Kalypso's island to Ithaka, including stay with the Phaiakians; and 4) Odysseus's lying stories.
     What do you suppose is the purpose of relating the Nostoi (most of which are contained in the Telemachy)? What does Telemachos learn from them–by analogy--about the difficulties confronting Odysseus?
     Think about the Odysseus's lying stories as a genre. The first four represent him as a former nobleman down on his luck. Is this true? What's the relationship between deception and honesty (poetry or storytelling and fact)? Can you sometimes get closer to the truth by lying or disguising it–by telling a story--rather than by a straightforward, literal account? Isn't poetry in essence a fictive rendering of conflicts and sufferings that we recognize as true?
     When asked, "Who are you?" on Ithaka, Odysseus gives five false stories [to Athene (13: 256-286); Eumaios (14: 191-359), the suitors (17: 419-444), Penelope (19: 165-202), and Laertes (24: 302-08)] . Why? As we discussed, and as Athene points out (13: 291-95), deception, craftiness, metis, is a character trait of Odysseus that sometimes seems to get the better of him (think about his behavior with Laertes). Remember, too, that he's been in disguise for so long that he hardly seems to know what he used to be (Laertes's son, for example). But think as well about how his stories–how presenting himself under different guises–function as a strategy of defense (13: 254-55). It's worth noting that in ancient Greek culture lying stories told by men–what might be called male literary adultery (since to lie is to adulterate a story–is as acceptable as male adultery, though Penelope is held to the truth, is expected to be faithful, in both word and behavior. Note, too, what country Odysseus in his lying stories says he's from (13:256; 14: 199).

Story of Odysseus's Scar (pp. 292-94): The scar is the sign by which Eurykleia recognizes Odysseus, of course. But why does the text go on at such length to describe how he incurred it? The scar is a sign of his manhood, but think about what it evokes. How does it function as a mnemonic? And what does this function say about the relationship between memory and identity? Does identity take place at a particular time or over time?

Eumaios's story: Think about Eumaois, the "noble swineherd," as a father figure for Telemachos and a figure for the poet. Remember his earlier defense of peripatetics. What's the significance of Eumaios's story of abduction and betrayal? Remember that Eumaios was reared in Laertes's household along with Odysseus's sister. What sort of lesson or warning does Eumaios's story hold for Odysseus?

Odyssey Notes for 10/3/01

Hades: A dank, dismal, blood-thirsty place (land of the living dead)
What does Odysseus learn from his trip to Hades (besides the treachery of women)?

a) Antikleia has died of grieving for her son (173: "it was my longing for you, your cleverness/ and your gentle ways, that took the sweet spirit of life from me." [Eumaios confirms:234]
     --without certain knowledge of the death of a loved one (and without a burial–body to weep over), grieving can go on forever–and it can be lethal
     –cf. Elpenor's plea: "do not go and leave me behind, unwept, unburied,/ when you leave, for fear I might become the gods' curse upon you" (170) [mourning/burial is part of dike]
     --mother: no kleos from being your mother's son

b) By the way, why do you suppose Odysseus recites the catalogue of women? [hint: who's his audience?]

d) Odysseus talks to Achilles and Ajax. What does Achilles say to him about being dead, now that he not only has great kleos on earth but authority over the dead? [180: "I would rather follow the plow as thrall to another man, one with no land alloted him and not much to live on, than be a king over all the perished dead"] What does Ajax say to him? [nothing: unforgiving

e) Teiresias (who we will meet again this semester) is the wisest of the prophets [Teiresias is 1) all insight, no sight; 2) he's lived life as a woman as well as a man]
     1) Does he prophesy to Odysseus what will happen on his journey home? Think about how he phrases his comments to Odysseus (p. 171: "if you can contain your own desire, and contain your companions', . . . if you keep your mind on homecoming, and leave [the cattle of Helios] unharmed, [then] you might all make your way to Ithaka, after much suffering."
[his fate–what will happen–is dependent upon the choices he makes, upon the actions he performs in the circumstances in which he finds himself]
     2) Teiresias also tells him that after he has punished the suitors and set his oikos to order "you must take up your well-shaped oar and go on a journey/ until you come where there are men living who know nothing of the sea"; "when, as you walk, some other wayfarer happens to meet you,/ and says you carry a winnow-fan on your bright shoulder, then you must plant your well-shaped oar in the ground, and render ceremonious sacrifice to the lord Poseidon . . . and make your way home again" (171). Why must he make this voyage? [1) to propitiate Poseidon; but also 2) bring knowledge of navigation to those without it–presumably for trade rather than piracy (remember the Kikonians); 3) to bring the worship of Poseidon where it didn't exist before. In other words, to export the customs of one's culture rather than bringing destruction to the lands he visits (which is to colonize: remember Odysseus's remark to the Phaiakians about the natural resources, the colonial potential, of the island nearby the Cyclops).

The Sirens: if the Lotus Eaters take memory away--and if Kalypso hides one from entering into cultural memory--the Sirens are just as dangerous but for different reasons. What do they do? [Look at your handout on the Great Wanderings: (p. 186; 190: they overwhelm the individual with memory, but memory of a narcissistic sort; what they do is to re-mind the listener]

Importance and Pleasure of Storytelling/Poetry: (see handout). But also p. 235: Eumaois on pleasure of recounting sorrows (in time, sorrows recounted become a source of pleasure not only to one's audience but for the teller as well)
cf. Odysseus at the court of the Phaiakians (though there is pleasure in lamentation as well (as the narrator says of Penelope listening to the disguised Odysseus telling his story to her: 287)

Problematic Ending: Odysseus as both representative of mankind and as exceptional man: