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"Odyssey (Homer)"
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Para-narratives in the Odyssey : stories in the frame
\"Readers coming to the Odyssey for the first time are often dazzled and bewildered by the wealth of material it contains which is seemingly unrelated to the central story: the main plot of Odysseus' return to Ithaca is complicated by myriad secondary narratives related by the poet and his characters, including Odysseus' own fantastic tales of Lotus Eaters, Sirens, and cannibal giants. Although these 'para-narratives' are a source of pleasure and entertainment in their own right, each also has a special relevance to its immediate context, elucidating Odysseus' predicament and also subtly influencing and guiding the audience's reception of the main story. By exploring variations on the basic story-shape, drawing on familiar tales, anecdotes, and mythology, or inserting analogous situations, they create illuminating parallels to the main narrative and prompt specific responses in readers or listeners. This is the case even when details are suppressed or altered, as the audience may still experience the reverberations of the better-known version of the tradition, and it also applies to the characters themselves, who are often provided with a model of action for imitation or avoidance in their immediate contexts.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Meaning of Meat and the Structure of the Odyssey
This comprehensive study of the Odyssey sees in meat and meat consumption a centre of gravitation for the interpretation of the poem. It aims to place the cultural practices represented in the poem against the background of the (agricultural) lived reality of the poem's audiences in the archaic age, and to align the themes of the adventures in Odysseus' wanderings with the events that transpire at Ithaca in the hero's absence. The criminal meat consumption of the suitors of Penelope in the civilised space of Ithaca is shown to resonate with the adventures of Odysseus and his companions in the pre-cultural worlds they are forced to visit. The book draws on folklore studies, the anthropology of hunting cultures, the comparative study of oral traditions, and the agricultural history of archaic and classical Greece. It will also be of interest to narratologists and students of folklore and Homeric poetics.
eBook
Homer and the poetics of Hades
\"Homer and the Poetics of Hades offers a new and unique approach to the Iliad and, more particularly, the Odyssey through an exploration of the role and function of the Underworld as a poetic resource permitting an alternative perspective on the epic past. By portraying Hades as a realm where vision is not possible, Homer creates a unique poetic environment in which social constraints and divine prohibitions do not apply, resulting in a narrative which emulates that of the Muses but which at the same time is markedly distinct from it. In Hades experimentation with, and alteration of, important epic forms and values can be pursued with greater freedom, giving rise to a different kind of poetics: the 'poetics of Hades'. In the Iliad, Homer offers us a glimpse of how this alternative poetics works through the visit of Patroclus' shade in Achilles' dream. The recollection offered by the shade reveals an approach to its past in which regret, self-pity, and a lingering memory of intimate and emotional moments displace an objective tone and traditional exposition of heroic values. However, the potential of Hades for providing alternative means of commemorating the past is more fully explored in the 'Nekyia' of Odyssey 11: there, Odysseus' extraordinary ability to see the dead in Hades allows him to meet and interview the shades of heroines and heroes of the epic past, while the absolute confinement of Hades allows the shades to recount their stories from their own personal points of view. The poetic implications are significant, since by visiting Hades and listening to the stories of the shades Odysseus, and Homer with him, gain access to a tradition in which epic values associated with gender roles and even divine law are suspended in favour of a more immediate and personally inflected approach to the epic past. As readers, this alternative poetics offers us more than just a revised framework within which to navigate the Iliad and the Odyssey, inviting as it does a more nuanced understanding of the Greeks' anxieties around mortality and posthumous fame.\"-- Provided by publisher.
Book
The Many-Minded Man
In The Many-Minded Man , Joel Christensen explores the
content, character, and structure of the Homeric Odyssey
through a modern psychological lens, focusing on how the epic both
represents the workings of the human mind and provides for its
audiences-both ancient and modern-a therapeutic model for coping
with the exigencies of chance and fate.
By reading the Odyssey as an exploration of the
constitutive elements of human identity, the function of narrative
in defining the self, and the interaction between the individual
and their social context, The Many-Minded Man addresses
enduring questions about the poem, such as the importance of
Telemachus's role, why Odysseus must tell his own tale, and the
epic's sudden and unexpected closure. Through these dynamics,
Christensen reasons, the Odyssey not only instructs
readers about how narrative shapes a sense of agency but also
offers solutions for avoiding dangerous stories and destructive
patterns of thought.
eBook
The Many-Minded Man
In The Many-Minded Man, Joel Christensen explores the content, character, and structure of the Homeric Odyssey through a modern psychological lens, focusing on how the epic both represents the workings of the human mind and provides for its audiences—both ancient and modern—a therapeutic model for coping with the exigencies of chance and fate. By reading the Odyssey as an exploration of the constitutive elements of human identity, the function of narrative in defining the self, and the interaction between the individual and their social context, The Many-Minded Man addresses enduring questions about the poem, such as the importance of Telemachus's role, why Odysseus must tell his own tale, and the epic's sudden and unexpected closure. Through these dynamics, Christensen reasons, the Odyssey not only instructs readers about how narrative shapes a sense of agency but also offers solutions for avoiding dangerous stories and destructive patterns of thought.
eBook
The Hippos of Troy
This book addresses perhaps the most famous episode in Classical mythology: the Wooden Horse of Troy. Through analysis of words, images and wrecks, the author proposes a new interpretation of what Homer actually intended when he spoke of the 'hippos' used by the Greeks to conquer Troy: a particular ship type, used to pay tribute to Levantine kings.
eBook
The Return of Ulysses
Whether they focus on the bewitching song of the Sirens, his cunning escape from the cave of the terrifying one-eyed Cyclops, or the vengeful slaying of the suitors of his beautiful wife Penelope, the stirring adventures of Ulysses/Odysseus are amongst the most durable in human culture. The picaresque return of the wandering pirate-king is one of the most popular texts of all time, crossing East-West divides and inspiring poets and fimmakers wordwide. But why, over three thousand years, has the Odyssey's appeal proved so remarkably resilient and longlasting? Edith Hall explains the enduring fascination of Homer's epic in terms of its extraordinary susceptibility to adaptation. Not only has the story reflected a myriad of different agendas, but - from the tragedies of classical Athens to modern detective fiction, film, travelogue and opera - it has seemed perhaps uniquely fertile in generating new artistic forms. Cultural texts as diverse as Joyce's “Ulysses”, Suzanne Vega's “Calypso”, Monteverdi's “Il Ritorno d'Ulisse in Patria”, the Coen Brothers' “O Brother Where Art Thou?” Daniel Vigne's “Le Retour de Martin Guerre” and Anthony Minghella's “Cold Mountain” all show that Odysseus is truly a versatile hero. His travels across the wine-dark Aegean are journeys not just into the mind of one of the most brilliantly creative of all the ancient Greek writers. They are as much a voyage beyond the limits of a narrative which can plausibly lay claim to being the quintessential global phenomenon.
eBook
Scylla
What's in a name? Using the example of a famous monster from Greek myth, this book challenges the dominant view that a mythical symbol denotes a single, clear-cut 'figure' and proposes instead to define the name 'Scylla' as a combination of three concepts - sea, dog and woman - whose articulation changes over time. While archaic and classical Greek versions usually emphasize the metaphorical coherence of Scylla's components, the name is increasingly treated as a well-defined but also paradoxical construct from the late fourth century BCE onward. Proceeding through detailed analyses of Greek and Roman texts and images, Professor Hopman shows how the same name can variously express anxieties about the sea, dogs, aggressive women and shy maidens, thus offering an empirical response to the semiotic puzzle raised by non-referential proper names.
eBook
A Penelopean poetics
A Penelopean Poetics looks at the relationship between gender ideology and the self-referential poetics of the Odyssey through the figure of Penelope. She is a cunning story-teller; her repeated reweavings of Laertes' shroud a figurative replication of the process of oral poetic composition itself. Penelope's web is thus a discourse and it can be construed specifically as feminine. Her gendered poetics celebrates process, multiplicity, and ambiguity and it resists phallocentric discourse by undermining stable and fixed meanings. Penelope's poetics become a discursive thread through which different feminine voices can realize their resistant capacities. Author Barbara Clayton's work contributes to discussions in the classics as well as literary criticism, sex and gender studies, and women's studies.
eBook
