more Odyssey secondary sources Flashcards
weak gods
Hastings: “utterly human”
“subject to the whims of fate”
powerful gods
Johnson: “major role in shaping the plot”
gods relations with humans
Jones: “help only those who are worthy”
Athene is a “surrogate father for Telemachus”
Telemachus
Smith: “Weak and powerless” to “slay one of his tormenters”
Jones: “learns from what other heroes have to tell him”
Odysseus’ shortcomings
Clarke: “dangerous extremes of anger, passion and recklessness”
Hall: “discerning eye of the colonist”
“strictly heterosexual”
“only deficiency might be his fatherhood”
Odysseus’ verbal skills
Clayton: “lack of physical impressiveness”
Silk: “most heroic quality is his cunning” “polutropos”
Odysseus’ kleos
Clarke: “driven to action by a need for social validation”
Greek view of Odysseus
Jones: “disguises and deceptions are all means to a justifiable and suitably heroic end”
Roman view of Odysseus
Jenkyns: “relies on trickery at times rather than outright bravery”
Odysseus is not Achilles
Graziosi: “comic character, a tragic character, a stoic sage and a villain”
shortcomings of Odysseus’ disguises
Murnaghan “could not be sustained for a long time successfully without Athene’s help”
what xenia reveals about civilisation
Goldhill: “way of judging the different societies”
“develop the characters”
Morrison: “in Pylos… we find a household obviously in fine order”
what xenia reveals about contemporaries
Reece: “formulaic” and “familiar” rules mocked by Polyphemus
Goldhill: “essential functioning of ancient society”
modern reaction to revenge
Stanton: “may have seen Odysseus’ killing of the suitors as just, whereas we may see it as murder”
revenge is taken too far
Stanton: “personal anger and retribution”
Graziosi: “only the crew of one ship who ate the sacred cattle”
