Odyssey secondary sources Flashcards
Nausicaa
Silk: “transient”
“playful romantic interlude”
Jenkyns: “blend of the elevated and everyday”
Arete
Chrystal:
“active and integral”
“free to come and go as they please”
Eurycleia
McDonald: “even the salves are noblemen who have come on hard times”
Circe
Doherty: female characters as narrators are more powerful than the listener
Athene
Jenkyns: “sexless affection”
“interesting characters”
Power of women
Wilson: “deep male fears about female power”
Griffin: “to men, women are inscrutable”
Penelope (strong)
Slatkin: “not lesser than her husband… they share their ingenuity (metis)”
Griffin: contrast between her and Clytemnestra “repeatedly emphasised”
Penelope (marriage)
Wilson: “defined exclusively by her marital status”
Graziosi: “above all famous for her role as the faithful wife”
Griffin: marriage bed is a symbol of the “solidity of their relationship”
Penelope (elusive)
Graziosi: “Homer tells us little about her thoughts, her motives are mysterious”
Slaves as simple characters
Thalmann:
“viewed from above and characterised”
–> sharply opposed in to good and bad
“dangerous element lurking in the very foundation of the oikos”
Status of slaves
Halverson: “these are the people who do not count”
importance of slaves
Jenkyns:
“prominence even to slaves and beggars”
–> Eumeaus and Eurclyeia both have recognition scenes
blending of fantasy and supernatural
Jones: “what is extraordinary is the way in which these worlds are… so effortlessly blended”
Role of Phaeacia
Segal “fantasy realm”
“share in the suffering mortality… trouble and uncertainty”
Dreams
Gregory:
“sent by a god to distress”
Or “waking visions”
purpose of the epic
Davenport: “triumph of mind over force”
camps: vast range of characters from all parts of society
heroism in the epic
Griffin: “tension between the two types of heroism”
Bowra: “faced not by his equals but by his inferiors or by monsters”
Speech in the epic
Griffin: “different style and vocabulary from the epic”
“judgments of the characters through their words and interactions”
epithets in the epic
Rieu: “remind us of the permanent, external qualities of people”
similes in the epic
Camps: “40 extended similes”
Morrison: “figures in the Agamemnon story as role models”
Nostos
Nagy: “becomes a hero because he manages to get home”
Kahane: “reassertion of control” “Union of male and female”
