The odyssey textbook pdf download
A close encounter with a man-eating giant, a sorceress who turns men into pigs, leads a long-lost king back to his throne.
On their own, neither of these makes great stories, but each is just one episode in "The Odyssey," a 12,000-line poem spanning years of ancient Greek history, myth, and legend.
How do we make sense of such a vast text that comes and conveys from such a distant world?
The fact that we can read "Odyssey" at all is unbelievable, as it was composed in the 8th century BCE before the arrival of the Greek alphabet.
It was created for the audience rather than the readers and was sung by oral poets known as rapsodes. Tradition identifies its author as a blind man named Homer.
But no one knows for sure whether he was real or mythical. The earliest mention of him is found centuries after his era.
And the poems written by him seem to have been changed and rearranged several times by several authors before being written in their present form.
In fact, the word rhapsode means stitching together, as these poets have combined existing stories, jokes, myths and songs into a single narrative.
To recite these massive epics live, Rhapsod used a steady meter, along with mnemonic instruments, such as the repetition of memorized passages or set pieces.
These included descriptions of scenes and a list of characters and helped rhapsodies retain their place in the narrative, just as the chorus of a song or the bridge helps us remember the next verses.
Since most of the tales were familiar to the audience, it was common to hear parts of the poem in sequence.
At some point, the order was set in stone and the story was sealed in the place we read it today.
But since the world has changed a bit over the past several thousand years, it helps to have some background before jumping in.
"The Odyssey" itself is a sequel to Homer's other famous epic, the "Iliad", which tells the story of the Trojan War.
If there is one major theme that unites the two poems, it is this: Do not, under any circumstances, take on the wrath of the gods.
The Greek pantheon is a dangerous mix of divine power and human insecurities, fueled by jealousy and malice of epic proportions.
And many of the problems humans face in poetry are because of their pride or excessive pride in considering themselves superior to the gods.
The desire to please the gods was so great that the ancient Greeks traditionally welcomed all strangers into their homes with generosity, fearing that strangers might be gods in disguise.
This ancient code of hospitality was called Xenia. This included hosts providing security, food, and comfort to their guests, and guests returning favors with courtesy and gifts if they had them.
Xenia has an important role in "The Odyssey", where Odysseus is the perpetual guest in his wanderings, while in his absence, his clever wife Penelope plays the non-stop host.
"The Odyssey" describes all the years of Odysseus' journey, but the story begins in the media that is in the middle of things.
Ten years after the Trojan War, we find our hero trapped on an island, still far from his native Ithaca and a family he hasn't seen for 20 years.
Because he has angered the sea god Poseidon by blinding his son, a Cyclops, Odysseus's home visit is fraught with accident after accident.
With trouble at home and the gods discussing their fate, Odysseus begins an account of those missing years for his hosts.
One of the most fascinating things about "The Odyssey" is the contrast between how little we know about its time period and the wealth of detail contained in the text.
Historians, linguists and archaeologists have spent centuries exploring the ruins of Troy and figuring out which islands Odysseus visited.
Like its protagonist, the 24-book epic has taken its long journey through centuries of myth and history to tell its incredible story to us today.
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