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Critical Analysis

LITERATURE 2

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SHAIRA G. PENDON

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MR. ORLANDO ARTIAGA

 HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

Homer’s Odyssey is an epic poem written in the 8th century BCE which describes the long voyage home
of the Greek hero Odysseus. The mythical king sails back to Ithaca with his men after the Trojan War but
is beset by all kinds of delays and misadventures where he battles monsters and storms but also resists
(eventually) the advances of beautiful women in the knowledge that, all the while, his faithful wife
Penelope is awaiting him. For the Greeks, the story occurred sometime in the 13 th century BCE during
the Bronze Age, in a heroic golden era much better than today’s sorry state of affairs.

The Odyssey is such a timeless story not only for its terrifying monsters, rip-roaring action scene, and
wealth of information on Mediterranean geography and legends but also because it involves the
irresistible plot line of a worthy hero trying desperately to get back to his city, his family, and hid throne.
The reader is in equal measures thrilled and exasperated, just like Odysseus himself, with very new
setback and wills the hero to finally make it home. The Odyssey is the first, and for many, still the best
page-turner ever written.

BACKGROUND

The Odyssey, is written sometime in the 8th century BCE (although some scholars would place it in the
6th century BCE), is an epic poem of more than 12,000 lines organized by scholars in Alexandria into 24
books. The Greeks thought its author Homer was from Chios or Ionia and credited him with both and its
prequel the Iliad, the two masterpieces of Greek literature. They also thought him the greatest ever
writer and referred to him simply as “the poet”. Homer drew on a long oral tradition of telling the Greek
myths, and this heritage is seen in the repetition of epithets, introductory phrases, and recurring
descriptive formulas. Some scholars see the Odyssey as the work of Homer in later life, hence slightly
different subjects and style compared to the Iliad. Other scholar maintains that it is the work of another
author precisely because of these differences. The issue is unlikely ever to be resolve.

The poem covers the voyage of Odysseus, the mythical king of Ithaca, on his return home from Trojan
War in Anatolia. The Greeks had finally sacked Troy after a 10-year siege, but their ruthless in doing so
incurred the wrath of the gods. Their voyage in the grand fleet was to be hit by the storm and
misfortune, and none more so than the ship of Odysseus.

Like the Iliad, which covers only 52 days of the Trojan War, the Odyssey only covers 42 days of Odysseus’
10-year voyage, the events which happened previously are told in flashback. Again, this is because
Homer is perhaps more concerned with a universal truth rather than a simple homecoming story. The
adventures of the hero against strange peoples and monsters is a device to show throughout the value
and necessity of civilization, that life in ordered Greek Ithaca is superior to that of the foreign lotus-
eaters and barbaric Cyclops. Odysseus will receive life-threatening trials and irresistible temptations
(even an offer of immortality, besides those of the flesh), he is frequently aided by Athena but
constantly at the mercy of Poseidon, and he must literary, go to hell and back, but his desire to return
home to civilization will never die, and his superior skills and culture, along with a divine will, ensure that
he does. There could be no other ending; civilization will, as always, prevail.
 AUTHORSHIP

The Greek poet Homer was born sometime between the 12th and 8th centuries BC, possibly somewhere
on the coast of Asia Minor. He is famous for the epic poems. The Iliad and The Odyssey, which have had
an enormous effect on Western culture, but very little is known about their alleged author.

The Mystery of Homer

Homer is mystery. The Greek epic poet credited with the enduring epic tales of The Iliad and The
Odyssey is an enigma insofar as actual facts of his life go. Some scholars believe him to be on man, other
think these iconic stories were created by a group. A variation on the group idea stems from the fact
that storytelling was an oral tradition and Homer compiled the stories, then recited them to memory.

Homer’s style, whoever he was, falls more in the category of minstrel poet or balladeer, as opposed to a
cultivated poet who is product of a fervent literary moment, such as a Virgil or Shakespeare. The stories
have repetitive elements, almost like a chorus or refrain, which suggests a musical element. However,
Homer’s works are designated as epic rather than lyric poetry, which was originally recited with lyre in
hand, much in the same vein a spoken-word performances.

All this speculation about who he was has inevitably led to what is known as the Homeric Question,
whether he actually existed at all. This is often considered to be the greatest literary mystery.

When he was born

Much speculation surrounds when Homer was born, because of the dearth of real information about
him. Guesses at his birth date range from 750 BC all the way back to 1200 BC, the latter because The
Iliad encompasses the story of the Trojan War, so some scholars have thought it fit to put the poet and
chronicler nearer to the time of that actual event. But other believes the poetic style of his work
indicated a much later period. Greek historian Herodotus (c.484-425 BC), often called the father of
history, placed Homer several centuries before himself, around 850 BC.

Part of the problem is that Homer lived before a chronological dating system was in place. The Olympic
Games of classical Greece marked an epoch, with 776 BC as a starting point by which to measure out
four-year periods for the event. In short, it is difficult to give someone a birth date when he was born
before there was a calendar.

Where he was born

Once again, the exact location of Homer’s birth cannot be pinpointed, although that doesn’t stop
scholars from trying. It has identified as Iona, Smyrna or, at any rate, on the coast of Asia Minor or the
Island of Chios. But seven cities lay claim to Homer as their native son.

There is some basis for some of these claims, however. The dialect that The Iliad and The odyssey are
written in is considered Asiatic Greek, specifically Ionic. That fact, paired with frequent mentions of local
phenomena such as strong winds blowing from the northwest from the direction of Thrace, suggest,
scholars feel, a familiarity with that region that could only mean Homer came from there.

The dialect help narrow down his life plan by coinciding it with the development and usage of language
in general, but The Iliad and The Odyssey were so popular that this particular dialect becomes the norm
for much of Greek literature going forward.

Legacy

“Plato tells us that in his time many believed that Homer was the educator of all Greece. Since then,
Homer’s influence has spread far beyond the frontiers of Hellas [Greece]… “Wrote Werner Jaeger in
Paideia: The Ideals of Greek Culture. He was right. The Iliad and The Odyssey have provided not only
seeds but fertilizer for almost all the other parts and sciences in Western culture, chronicling its
mythology and collective memory in rich rhythmic tales that have permeated the collective imagination.

Homer’s real life may remain a mystery, but the very real impact of his works continues to illuminate our
world today.
 CHARACTERS/CHARACTERISTICS

ODYSSEUS
Odysseus, also known by the Latin variant Ulysses, is a legendary Greek of Ithaca and the hero of
Homer’s epic poem the Odyssey. Odysseus also plays a key role in Homer’s Iliad and other works in that
same epic cycle.

PENELOPE
Penelope is the wife of Odysseus, who is known for her fidelity to Odysseus while he was
absent, despite having suitors.

CALYPSO
Calypso was a nymph in Greek mythology, who lived on the island of Ogygia, where she
detained Odysseus for 7 years.

TELEMACHUS
Telemachus is a figure in Greek mythology, the son of Odysseus and Penelope, and a central
character in Homer’s Odyssey.

ZEUS
Zeus is the sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion, who rules the king of the gods of
Mount Olympus. Brother of Poseidon, father of Athena.

KIKONES
People at Ismaros, raided by Odysseus after the Trojan War

EUMAEUS
Faithful swineherd of Odysseus

ARETE
Queen of the Phaeacians
EURYCLEIA
A loyal nurse who cared for Odysseus when he was a child

POLYPHEMUS
Is a giant son of Poseidon and Thoosa in Greek mythology one of the Cyclops described in
Homer’s Odyssey. His name means “abounding in songs and legends”.

POSEIDON
He was god of the sea and other waters; of earthquakes, and of horses. Was one of the 12
Olympians in ancient Greek religion and myth.

TERASIAS
In Greek mythology, Terasias was a blind prophet of Apollo in Thebes, famous for clairvoyance
and for being transformed into a woman for 7 years. He was the son of the shepherd Everes and the
nymph.

MENELAUS
In Greek mythology, Menelaus was a king of Mycenaean Sparta, the husband of Helen of Troy,
and the son of Atreos and Aerope.

ATHENA/ATHENE
Is the ancient Greek goddess of Wisdom handicraft and warfare, who was later syncretized with
the Roman goddess Minerva

AGAMEMNON
King of Mycenae; Greek leader at Troy, murdered by his wife Klytaimnestra and her lover
Aigisthos on his return home; brother of Menelaus

AGELAOS
One of the suitors of Penelope
PHILOITIOS
Faithful cowherd to Odysseus

LAERTES
Father of Odysseus

CICE
Enchantress who turns men into swine; Odysseus and his men stay on her island for a year.

SIRENS
Enchantress who lure suitors to their deaths with their beautiful voices

AILOS
King of the winds; gives Odysseus a bag of winds

ACHILLES
The greatest Greek warrior at Troy

AMPHINOMES
A suitor of Penelope

HADES
God of the underworld

EURYMAKHOS
Rational suitor of Penelope

HELEN
Wife of Menelaus; causing the Trojan War

HERA
Queen of the gods; wife of Zeus

HERMES
Messenger of the gods

CYCLOPS
One-eyed race of giants; Odysseus encounter the Cyclops named Polyphemus on his journey

MUSES
The nine goddesses who inspire the arts

PHAEACIANS
Inhabitants of the island of Skheria

ANTINOUS
Hotheaded ringleader of Penelope’s suitors
 SYNOPSIS

Ten years after the fall of Troy, victorious Greek hero Odysseus has still not returned to his native Ithaca.
A band of rowdy suitors, believing Odysseus to be dead, has overrun his place, courting his faithful…
though weakening… wife, Penelope, and going through his stock of food. With permission from Zeus,
the goddess Athena, Odysseus greatest immortal ally, appears in disguise and urges Odysseus son
Telemachus to seek news of his father at Pylos and Sparta. However, the suitors, led by Antinous, plan
to ambush him upon his return.

As Telemachus tracks Odysseus’ trail until through stories from his old comrades-in-arm, Athena
arranges for release of Odysseus from the islands of the beautiful goddess Calypso, whose prison and
lover he has been for the last eight years. Odysseus sets sail on a makeshift raft, but the sea god
Poseidon, whose wrath Odysseus incurred earlier in his adventure by blinding Poseidon’s son, the
Cyclops Polyphemus, conjures up a storm. With Athena’s help, Odysseus reaches the Phaeacians. Their
princess, Nausicaa, who has crush on the handsome warrior, opens the palace to the stranger. Odysseus
withholds his identity for as long as he can until finally, at the Phaeacians request, he tells the story of
his adventures.

Odysseus relates how, following the Trojan War, his men suffered more losses at the hands of the
Kikones, then were nearly tempted to stay on the island of the drag addled Lotus eaters. Next, Cyclops
Polyphemus devoured many of Odysseus’ men before an ingenious plan Odysseus’ allowed the rest to
escape… but not before personal war with Poseidon. The wind god Ailos then provided Odysseus with
the bag of winds to aid his return home, but the crew greedily opened the bag and sent to ship to the
land of the giants, man-eating Laistrygonians, where they again barely escaped.

On their next stop, the goddess Circe tricked Odysseus men and turned into pigs. With the help of the
god Hermes, Odysseus defied her spell and metamorphosed the pigs bag into men. They stayed on her
island for year in the lap of luxury, with Odysseus as her lover, before moving on and resisting the
temptations of the seductive and dangerous Sirens, navigating between the sea monster Scylla and the
whirlpool of Charybdis, and plumbing the depths of Hades to receive a prophecy from the blind seer
Tiresias. Resting on the island of Helios, Odysseus’ men disobeyed his orders not to touch the oxen. At
sea, Zeus punished them all but Odysseus died in a storm. It was then that Odysseus reached Calypso’s
island.

Odysseus finishes his story, and the Phaeacians hospitably give him gifts and ferry him home on a ship.
Athena disguises Odysseus as a beggar and instructs him to seek out his old swineherd, Eumaeus; she
will recall Telemachus from his own travels. With Athena’s help, Telemachus avoids the suitors’ ambush
and reunites with his father, who travels his identity only to his son and swineherd. He devises a plan to
overthrow the suitors with their help.

In disguise as a beggar, Odysseus investigates his palace. The suitors and a few of his old servants
generally treat him rudely as Odysseus sizes up the loyalty of Penelope and his another servants.
Penelope, who notes the resemblance between the beggar and her presumably dead husband,
proposes a contest: she will, at last, marry the suitor who can string Odysseus’ great bow and shoot an
arrow through a dozen axe heads.

Only Odysseus can pull off the feat. Bow in hand, he shoots and kills the suitors Antinous and reveals his
identity. With Telemachus, Eumaeus, and his goatherd Philoitios at his side. Odysseus leads the
massacre of the suitors, aided only at the end by Athena. Odysseus lovingly reunites with Penelope, his
knowledge of their bed that he built the proof that overcomes her skepticism that he is an impostor.
Outside of town, Odysseus visits his ailing father, Laertes, but an army of the suitors’ relatives quickly
finds them. With encouragement of a disguised Athena, Laertes strikes down the ringleader, Antinous’
father. Before the battle can progress any further, Athena, on command from Zeus, orders peace
between the two sides.
 LITERARY CRITICAL ANALYSIS

After an invocation to the Muse of poetry, the epic begins in Medias Res (“in the middle of things”).
Odysseus has been gone from Ithaca for about 20 years-the first 10 spent fighting the Trojan War, the
last 10 trying to get home.

Meanwhile Odysseus’ wife, Penelope, tries to fend off over 100 suitors who have invaded the royal
palace, seeking her hand in marriage (and a chance of ruling Ithaca), and indulging in great amounts of
food and wine at the hosts’ expense. Telemachus, son of Odysseus and Penelope, is just coming of age
(he approximately 21) and is at loss as to what to do about the suitors. Mother and son yearn for
Odysseus’ return.

The first four books deals with Telemachus’ struggle (in fact, Odysseus does not appear in the epic till
book 5). A secondary plot in The Odyssey is Telemachus’ coming of age. His own quest, which scholars
sometimes refer to as the “Telemacheia”.

The goddess Athena appears to the young prince in disguise and advises him to gather an assembly of
the island’s leaders to protest the invasion of the suitors. Soon after, he is to visit King Nestor of Pylos
and King Menelaus of Sparta, old comrades of his father’s, to gather from them any new of Odysseus.

At the assembly, the two leading suitors-the aggressive Antinous and the smooth-talking Eurymachus
confront the prince. The accuse Penelope of delaying too long in her choice of a new husband.
Telemachus speaks well but accomplishes little at the assembly because the suitors are from some of
the strongest families in the area are impatient with Penelope’s delays.

As Telemachus secretly sets off for Pylos and Sparta, the suitors plot to assassinate him. At Pylos,
Telemachus learns little of his father but is encouraged to visit Sparta where King Menelaus reports that
Odysseus is alive but held captive by the goddess nymph Calypso.

Homer leaves the story of Telemachus as the suitors are about to ambush his ship on its return to
Ithaca. At Athena’s urging, the gods have decided to free Odysseus from Calypso. Hermes, the
messenger god, delivers the order to Odysseus’ captor. Odysseus has spent seven years with the
goddess, sleeping with her at night and pining for his home and family during the day. Calypso is a
beautiful, lustful nymph, who wants to marry Odysseus and grant him immortality, but he longs for
Penelope and Ithaca, reluctantly, Calypso sends Odysseus on his way.

Poseidon, the sea god, spots the wayfarer and seeking revenge because Odysseus blinded Poseidon’s
son Cyclops, shipwrecks OPdysseus on Phaeacia, which is ruled by the King Alcinous. The Phaeacians,
civilized and hospitable people, welcome the stranger and encourage him to tell of his adventures.
Through Odysseus’ narration, the reader goes back to 10 years and hears his tale.

Known as “The Wanderings of Odysseus”, third section is the most famous of the epic. At the end of the
Trojan War, Odysseus and his men sail first to the land of the Cicones. The Greek succeed in raiding the
central city but linger too long and are routed by a reserve force. Hoping to sail directly home, the flotilla
instead encounters a severe storm, brought on by Athena that blows them far off course to the land of
the Lutos-eaters. This are not hostile people, but eating the lutos plant removes memory and ambition;
Odysseus is barely able to pull his men away and resume the journey.

Curiosity compels Odysseus to explore the land of the Cyclops, a race of uncivilized, cannibalistic, one-
eyed giants. One of them Polyphemus (also known simply as “Cyclops”), traps Odysseus’ scouting party
in his cave. To escape, Odysseus blinds the one-eyed monster, incurring the wrath of the giant’s father
Poseidon.

Aeolus, the wind god, is initially a friendly host. He captures all adverse winds and bags them for
Odysseus, who is thus able to sail within sight of Ithaca. Unfortunately, his men suspect that the bag
holds treasure and open it while Odysseus sleeps. The troublesome winds blow the party back to
Aeolus, who wants no more to do with them, speculating that they must be cursed by the gods.

The next hosts, the cannibalistic Laestrygonians, sink all the ships but Odysseus‘ in a surprise attack. The
remaining Greeks reach Aeaea, home of the beautiful enchantress Circe, who turns several of them into
pig. With advice from Hermes, Odysseus cleverly defeats Circe and becomes her lover. She lifts the spell
from his men and aids in the group’s eventual departure a year later, advising Odysseus that he must
sail to the land of the Dead. There, he receives various Greek heroes, a visit from his own mother, and
an important prophecy from the seer Tiresias. Odysseus resumes his journey.

Barreling surviving the temptations of the Sirens’ song and an attack by six-headed named Scylla,
Odysseus and his crew arrive at the island of the Sungod Helios. Despite severe warning not to, the men
feast on the cattle of the Sungod during Odysseus’ brief absence. Zeus is outraged and destroys the ship
as the Greek depart, killing all but Odysseus, who is washed ashore at Calypso’s island, where he stays
until released seven years later.

The story of his adventure finished, Odysseus receives the admiration and gift of the Phaeacians who
follow their tradition of returning wayfaring strangers to their homelands by sailing him to Ithaca.
Meanwhile, Athena helps Telemachus avoid the suitors’ ambush and arranges for himto meet his father
at their pig farm not far from the palace.

Reunited with his son and with the assistance of Athena and his faithful swineherd Eumaeus, Odysseus
returns to his home palace disguised as a beggar. For the time, he resists striking back at the suitors who
insult and assault him. Penelope seems at least suspicious that he is her husband, but it is Eurycleia, a
loyal nurse who cared for Odysseus when he was a child, who has no doubt of his identity as she
discovers an old scar she bathes him

Penelope arranges a contest, vowing to wed any man who can string the great bow of Odysseus and
shoot an arrow through a dozen axes as he used to do. The suitors all fail; only Odysseus himself can
perform the feat. With deft planning and more help from Arthena, he and Telemachus and two faithful
herdsmen slaughter the suitors. Odysseus and Penelope are reunited, as one Odysseus and his aging
father, Laertes. Athena, makes peace with the suitors’ vengeful friends and families, avoiding civilwar.
Odysseus is home at last.
 PHILOSOPY

In Homer’s epic “the Odyssey”, Odysseus reflects the values of the culture that memorialize him, such as
bravery, intelligences, creativity, etc. What cultural value, however, is missing or unimportant and what
might its omission tell us about the Greek culture of the time?

It is always difficult, and usually of questionable practicality, to attempt to judge contemporary standard
of morality with those that existed thousands of years ago. To attempt to impose those modern
standards on a work of ancient mythology, however, is a particularly dubious proposition. Nevertheless,
there is much in Homer’s epic of Odysseus and his ten-year journey home to his wife and son that
informs the reader of the cultural milieu in which The odyssey was written, and with provides some
grounds for a comparison with contemporary notions of cultural values.

While the notion of allowing one’s home to be taken over by a gathering of strange men all
maneuvering for position as top candidate to replace Odysseus in Penelope’s bed certainly strikes
modern readers as strange and unrealistic, ancient Greek culture actually did allow for such
developments. As many scholars of Homer have pointed out, the Greek concepts of xenia provided for
just such an arrangement not only in Odysseus’ home, but throughout the story, as Odysseus’ grown
son, Telemachus, is invited to homes, especially the home of Menelaus and his wife, Helen, where it is
expected that he will remain as a guest as long as he wishes. Odysseus avails himself of this privilege
when he finally returns to his own home after a 20-year absence and disguised as a tramp, take up
residency there alongside the intrusive suitors.

The most significant cultural distinction between Homer’s portrait of ancient Greece and common
cultural values today involves the very mythology that make such comparisons a questionable exercise.
The Odyssey is a story dominated by the presence and influence of gods and goddesses, particularly
Zeus, Poseidon, and Athena. Ancient Greek culture was heavily influenced by mythology. The notion of a
plethora of gods and goddesses determining mankind’s fate and posing the ever-present threat of being
cast into the heavens to live in perpetuity in the form of a stellar constellation is certainly an alien
concept to most cultures today. The development of monotheistic religions that account for much of the
world’s population constituted a significant rejection of ancient culture. While Hinduism is found in the
concept of multiple deities, Christianity, Islam and Judaism are all founded in the notion of a single God.
In that sense, the contrasts between ancient Greek culture and modern cultures is not pronounced.
 LITERARY DEVICES

Elevated language and meter

Composed around 700 BC, The Odyssey is one of the earliest epics still in existence and, in many ways,
sets the pattern for the genre, neatly fitting the definition of a primary epic (that is, one that grows of
oral tradition).

In the Odyssey, home employs most of the literary and poetic devices associated with epics; catalogs
digressions, long speeches, journey or quest, various trials or tests of the hero, similes, metaphors, and
divine intervention.

Home composed The Odyssey in a meter known as dactylic hexameter, which gives the epic its elevated
style. Each line has six metrical feet. The first five feet maybe made up of either dactyls and/or
spondees. A dactyl is metrical foot consisting a long sound. (BEEEEAT BEEEEAT). However a line is
composed, the last metrical foot usually is a spondee (BEEEEAT BEEEEAT).

IN Homer’s epic poetry, composed in Ancient Greek, it is length of the sound that counts, not the
emphasis as is usually the case in contemporary English poetry. Translations, for obvious reasons,
generally cannot mimic the metric foot of the epics and remain true to content and themes.

The epic simile

One of the devices used most effectively by Homer is the epic simile. A simile is a figure of are shown to
be similar, for poetic purposes, often through the use of the words “like” or “as”. For example, we might
say that a girl’s hair is like sunshine or that her breath is rank as an old gym sock. An epic simile
sometimes extends the comparison to expansive proportions. One relatively short example in The
Odyssey appears when Odysseus and his men blind the Cyclops: “as a blacksmith plunges a glowing ax
or adze/in an ice-cold bath and metal screeches steam/ and its temper hardens-that’s the iron’s
strength-/ so the eye of the Cyclops sizzled round that stake” (9.438-41).

Seth L. Schein (reading the Odyssey, 1996, pp. 15-16) neatly distinguishes between the similes of The
Iliad and The Odyssey. The Iliad is confined geographically in ways that The Odyssey is not; it deals
primarily with Trojan War. The Odyssey, on the other hand, covers much of the known (and some of the
unknown) world of the time. Because of this, Homer’s similes in The Iliad perform two functions: first, as
with the most similes, they help to clarify or deepen the reader’s experience of something, such as
mood, an event, an object or though. Second, the simile also, as Schein puts it “expand(s) the universe
of the poem and the range of experience it comprehends.”

In the Odyssey, Homer uses the epic simile differently. First, the later poem has fewer similes, and, for
the most part, they do not expand the already vast world of the story. Instead, in the Odyssey, the
similes intensify the experience for the reader. Schein and others cite the simile that Homer creates
when he appropriately compares Penelope’s delight, upon realizing her husband’s return, to that felt by
shipwrecked sailors feel/ when they catch sight of land”. Penelope is like the shipwrecked sailors. Her
life has been, in effect, lost at sea without her husband. Realizing his return is like catching sight of land.

Epithets

Homer’s poetics include other noticeable devices that may seem odd to a modern reader. One is his
extensive use of epithets. An epithet is a term or phrase used to characterize the nature of a character,
an object, or an event. An epithet that has become a cliché because if its excessive use in earlier
translation of The Odyssey is “rosy-fingered Dawn”. Morning’s first light is compared to rosy fingers
spreading across the land. Fagles spares the reader slightly, while being faithful to the text, by referring
to ‘Dawn with her rose-fingers” (the first line of Book 2, for example)

Athena, sometimes called Pallas Athena or simply Pallas, often carries the epithet “sparkling-eyed”.
Among other characteristics hair gets a lot of attention in epithets. Circe, for example, is ‘the nymph
with lovely braids”. Various limbs are extolled. The sea-nymph Ino is “Cadmus” daughter with lovely
ankles; the beautiful daughter of Alcinous and Arete is “[w]hite-armed Nausicaa”. In addition to
identifying characters in way that may or may not be very significant, epithets allow the poet to fill out a
line and match the meter as his.
Other literary devices

Some other literary devices, such as catalogs and digressions, may seem tedious to the modern reader.
To his audience in ancient Greece, however, Homer’s various lists of heroes or villains were familiar.

For modern readers, the epic also has an unusual amount of repetition. Nevertheless, this repetition is
one of the features of oral tradition that help to identify The Odyssey as a primary epic. Repetition was
used as a touchtone for the rhapsode; it helped him keep his place. Repetition aided the listener in the
same way.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE ODDYSEY SOURCES AND CLASSICNOTE AUTHOR

 Teddy Wayne, author of classic note. Completed on April9,2003,copyright held by Grade Saver
 Updated and revised by Aaron Suduiko July 23, 2015. Copyright held by Grade Saver
 Hexter, Ralph J. A guide to Odyssey: Fitzgerald. New York: Vintage Book, 1993
 Homer Trans. Robert Fagles. The Odyssey . New York: Penguin Books, 1996
 Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: vintage books, 1990
 Maria Reicher, “Nomexistent Objects”., Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Winter 2014. July
23, 2015
 Martin Mueller. “About Homeric Repititions”. Eumaios: a collaborative website for Early Greek
(Northwestern university). July 23, 2015
 “Fractal Pyramid”. Artpaintingartist.org. July 23, 2015