Odyssey Critics Flashcards
Edith Hall
Telemachus is robbed of the chance to become a Homeric hero. Initiation involved first kill and having intercourse with a woman for the first time. Plus he is even denied stringing the bow by Odysseus.
Edith Hall
women were seen as property and this is exemplified by the treatment of the disloyal maids. Seen as a form of robbery
Peter jones
“Eumaeus and Eurycleia represent what the palace used to be like - and will be again, when the master is restored.”
Emma Aston
Homer makes the greatest contribution to Greek understanding of the nature of their gods due to his Panhellenic appeal.
Peter Jones
Homer is careful to establish the ethical pattern of the Odyssey at its very start, with Zeus’ speech
Barbara Graziosi
“The Gods in the Odyssey are embarrassing”
Ahuvia Kahane
Odyssey is not a fairy tale, but an extraordinary poem for ordinary readers.”
Barbara Graziosi
“By turns a comic character, a tragic hero, a stoic sage, and a villain, Odysseus could never, and cannot yet, be pinned down.
James Morrison
“We might think of the figures in the Agamemnon story as role models, both positive and negative, for the major figures in the epic
Edith Hall
“In Odysseus the Greeks had a glamourous hero and expert navigator But Odysseus is a hero who also symbolises Greek intellectual prowess in other ways. He is inherently curious about the world and investigates interesting phenomena simply because he encounters them.”
Peter Jones
“There have been three common responses to the hero of the Odyssey. First, he is the loyal hero-husband, whose eyes are fixed on one goal only: return home. Second, he is the eternal wanderer, fired with a passion for knowledge and experience. Third, he is an anti-hero, a mean, selfish time-server who employs disguise and deceit often to gain the most disreputable ends (classical Greeks and Romans frequently saw him in this light).”
Ahuvia Kahane
“The actions of the Odyssey are motivated by the idea of the return to the ‘inner’ space, (returning to Ithaca/the members of his household and reasserting his identity)
Peter Jones
However badly the suitors have behaved is their mass slaughter an appropriate punishment
Edith Hall
“By the end of the Odyssey, all good Xenia has been rewarded and all bad Xenia punished.”
Richard Jenkyns
Demonstrations of good hospitality are a show of moral values in the Odyssey.
