The Odyssey: An Introduction

Everything you need to know to read The Odyssey Use headphones to Watch the video below to introduceThe Odyssey,then complete the fill-in-the-blank notes and answer the comprehension questions. I should hear no noise from your computer. An encounter with a man-eating giant. A sorceress who turns men into pigs. A long-lost king taking back his throne. On their own, any of these make great stories. But each is just one episode in The Odyssey,a 12,000-line poem spanning years of ancient Greek history and legend.So how do we make sense of this massive text that comes from and tells of a world so far away? The fact that we can read The Odysseyat all is pretty incredible, as it was composed before the Greek alphabet appeared in the 8th century BCE. It was made for listeners rather than readers and was performed by oral poets known as rhapsodes.Tradition identifies its author as a blind man named Homer. But no one definitively knows whether he was real or legendary. The earliest mentions of him occur centuries after his era. And the poems attributed to him seem to have been changed and rearranged many times by multiple authors before finally being written down in their current form.In fact, the word rhapsodes means stitching together as poets combined existing stories, jokes, myths, and songs into a single narrative. To recite these massive epics live, rhapsodes employed a steady meter, along with mnemonic devices, like repetition of memorized passages or set pieces. These included descriptions of scenery or lists of characters and helped the rhapsode keep their place in the narrative, just as the chorus or bridge of a song helps us to remember the next verses.Because most of the tales were familiar to the audience, it was common to hear the sections of the poem out of order. At some point the order became set in stone, and the story was locked into place as the one we read today. But since the world has changed a bit in the last several thousand years, it helps to have some background before jumping in.The Odysseyitself is a sequel to Homer's other famous epic The Illiad,, which tells the story of the Trojan war. If there's one major theme uniting both poems it's this: do not, under any circumstances, incur the wrath of the gods.The Greek pantheon is a dangerous mix of divine power and human insecurity, prone to jealousy and grudges of epic proportions. And many of the problems of humans in the poems are caused by their hubris, or excessive pride, in believing 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 for fear the strangers might be gods in disguise. This ancient code of hospitality was called xenia. It involved hosts providing their guests with safety, food and comfort, and the guests returning the favor with courtesy and gifts if they had them. Xenia has a significant role in The Odysseywhere Odysseus in his wanderings is the perpetual guest, while in his absence, his clever wife Penelope plays non-stop host.The Odyssey recounts all of Odysseus' years of travel, but the narrative begins "in medias res" 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 the family that he hasn't seen for 20 years. Because he's angered the sea god Poseidon, by blinding his son, a cyclops, Odysseus' passage home has been fraught with mishap after mishap. With trouble brewing at home and gods discussing his fate, Odysseus begins the account of those missing years to his hosts.One of the most fascinating things about The Odyssey is the gap between how little we know about its time period and the wealth of details the text itself contains. Historians, linguists, and archeologists, have spent centuries searching for the ruins of Troy and identifying which islands Odysseus visited.Just like the hero, the 24-book epic has made its own long journey through centuries of myth and history to tell us its incredible story today. When did the Greek alphabet first appear? 1000 years ago 8th century BCE 2nd century BCE No one knows Which of the following elements helped rhapsodes remember epic poems? Stories that were familiar to the audience The fact that The Odysseywas the sequel to The Iliad. Memorized passages or "set pieces" Organizing the poem into sections. Which of the following unites The Iliad and The Odyssey? The kindness of strangers The leadership of Achilles The strength of the Greek city-state Making the gods mad at you is dangerous. What is Xenia? Wrath of the gods Excessive pride A code of hospitality The meter used by rhapsodes. Which god has hindered, or gotten in the way of, Odysseus' journey home? Zeus Athena Poseidon Apollo How did they hinder Odysseus' journey home?