LITERATURE CIRCLES

Literary Luminary
Name: Edward Mikhail M. Chua
Text: Book 1-4
Date: July 26, 2010
Books: The Odysseus of Homer

Literary Luminary: The Odyssey features a powerful array of epithets and figures of
speech. Your job is: (a) to prepare a summary of the reading. Make a quick statement to discuss
the UNIVERSAL TRUTH found in the text; (b) to identify “Golden Lines”—or special passages
in the text (interesting, powerful, funny, puzzling, or important sections). You will also ponder on
how certain lines in the text are further illuminated in succeeding scenes. Decide which passages
or paragraphs are worth remembering, and indicate how you plan to present them: (a) You can
read the passages aloud yourself, (b) ask someone else to read them, or (c) read them together
as a group. Make sure to discuss your analysis of the selected text.

Quick Statement: What, for you, is the UNIVERSAL TRUTH in the text? Compare
this with others’.

Life is filled with uncertainties and earching for a solution.

GOLDEN LINES Book Significance and Analysis

1
Tell me, Muse, of the man of Introduction – general
many ways, who was driven summary of the story
far journeys, after he had
sacked Troy's sacred citadel.
Many were they whose cities
he saw, whose minds he
learned of, many the pains he
suffered in his spirit on the
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wide sea, 5 struggling for his

own life and the homecoming
of his companions. Even so
he could not save his
companions, hard though he
strove to; they were
destroyed by their own wild
recklessness, fools, who
devoured the oxen ofHelios,
the Sun God, and he took
away the day of their
homecoming. From some
point 10 here, goddess,
daughter ofZeus,speak, and
begin our story.
Thenalltheothers,asmanyasfl
edsheerdestruction,wereatho
menow, having escaped the
sea and the fighting. This one
alone, longing for his wife
and his homecoming, was
detained by the queenly
nymphKalypso,bright among
goddesses, 15 in her
hollowed caverns, desiring
that he should be her
husband.
Butwheninthecirclingoftheye
arsthatveryyearcameinwhicht
hegodshad spun for him his
time of homecoming
toIthaka,not even then was
he free of his trials nor
among his own people. But
all the gods pitied him 20
exceptPoseidon; he remained
relentlessly angry with
godlikeOdysseus, until his
return to his own country.
But Poseidon was gone now
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to visit the far Aithiopians,

Aithiopians, most distant of
men, who live divided, some
at the setting
ofHyperion,some at his
rising,
1
‘Oh for shame, how the Humans blame it on
mortals put the blame upon the gods but they
us gods, for they say evils don't see that they
come from us, but it is they, are at fault.
rather, who by their own
recklessness win sorrow
beyond what is given,

The gods are impeding his 1 Calypso holds him

passage. For no death on the captive.
land has befallen the great
Odysseus, but somewhere,
alive on the wide sea, he is
held captive, on a sea-
washed island, and savage
men have him in their
keeping, rough men, who
somehow keep him back,
though he is unwilling
Fit out a ship with twenty 1
oars, the best you can come This is the call of the
by, and go out to ask about hero.
your father who is so long
absent,

1
But if you decide it is more In colloquial term,
profitable and better to go these suitors are like
on, eating up one man's “squatters.” They
livelihood, without payment, are like parasites
then spoil my house. I will cry continually
out to the gods everlasting in consuming's
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the hope that Zeus might Odysseus's wealth

somehow grant a reversal of and possesion.
fortunes.

2
For she holds out hope to all, The suitors claim that
and makes promises to each she seduces every
man, sending us messages, suitor but doesn't
but her mind has other commit.
intentions. And here is
another stratagem of her
heart's devising.
2
Thereafter in the daytime she She promised to
would weave at her great marry as soon as she
loom, but in the night she is finished weaving
would have torches set by, the morning shroud.
and undo it. But she
un-weaves it every
night showing that
she still hopes for the
homecoming of
Odysseus.

2
It will be hard to pay back Ikarious is most likely
Ikarios, if willingly I dismiss the father of
my mother. Penelope thus giving
her another trait,
wisdom or intelligent,
that makes her more
appealing to the
suitors.

3
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But death is a thing that The gods and goddess

comes to all alike. Not even favor some heroes
the gods can fend it away but even their favor
from a man they love, when cannot prevent their
once the destructive doom of inevitable
leveling death has fastened
upon him.

1 Describes them as a
Ore-loving people and it sounds
funny

Possible Reasons for Picking a Passage:

funny controversial important surprising

confusing informative