After the Odyssey Zeus’ settlement at the end of the Odyssey is meant to be permanent: Odysseus will “be ruler forever” (βασιλευέτω αἰεί, 24.483). Of course, this cannot come to pass literally; even the divinely favored Menelaos must cede Sparta and retire to Elysion (Odyssey 4.561-564). The clear implication is that Odysseus will rule Ithake until his death, at which point his heir will assume power. Read more
Nestor’s Nostoi Like Odysseus, the mortal character Nestor focalizes a significant portion of the Odyssey. His narrative helps to establish further the poem’s relationship to the Nostos-tradition, which, as discussed in previous chapters, forms the part of the Odyssey’s backstory that extends from the fall of Troy to the death of Agamemnon. In a speech that extends over more than a quarter of Odyssey 3 (130-200, 262-312),… Read more
Divine plan and narrative plan Thus far I have argued that the Dios boulē theme serves two interconnected functions in the Odyssey: it lends shape and coherence to the narrative, and it mediates the Odyssey’s relationship to other Odysseus-traditions. The attraction of Zeus to the interface between the Homeric and non-Homeric accounts I have explained in terms of the Panhellenic orientation of the former: the Odyssey was… Read more
Appendix 1: Homeric scenes in which Zeus appears and references to his actions Citations include scenes in the main narrative, as well as scenes that, while outside the main narrative, impinge on it (such as the encounter between Helios and Zeus in Odyssey 12) or proceed directly from it (such as the destruction of the Greek fortifications predicted in Iliad 7 and 12). Not included are scenes… Read more
Appendix 2: Typology of Divine Councils in the Odyssey I have throughout this study referred to the five scenes in which Zeus has a speaking role in the Odyssey, in Books 1, 5, 12, 13 and 24, as “divine councils.” From the standpoint of the oral tradition in which the Homeric epics originated, these narrative settings can be described as “type-scenes.” This level of organization in Homeric… Read more
Bibliography Texts West, M., ed. 1998. Homerus Ilias Volumen Prius Rhapsodias I-XII Continens. Stuttgart and Leipzig. West, M., ed. 2000. Homerus Ilias Volumen Alterum Rhapsodias XIII-XXIV Continens. Munich and Leipzig. van Thiel, H., ed. 1991. Homeri Odyssea. Zurich and New York. Allen, T., ed. 1912. Homeri Opera V: Hymnos Cyclum Fragmenta Margiten Batrachomyomachiam… Read more
2. Helen’s Web: Time and Tableau in the Iliad [1] This paper was originally prepared for a panel on “Some Contemporary Approaches to the Homeric Poems.” [2] It describes a case in which contemporary critical theory, when combined with our knowledge of formulaic style, helps to interpret a problematic convention of the Iliad, namely, the suspension… Read more
3. Similes and Symbol in Odyssey v [1] Since antiquity, the Odyssey has invited symbolic interpretation. When Eustathius pronounces the poem an ethical allegory, and in that, more indicative than the Iliad of “Homeric power,” he echoes a tradition extending back through early Christian writers to the Allegoriae (Quaestiones Homericae) of Heraclitus. [2] Among modern critics, Charles… Read more
4. Odyssean Temporality: Many (Re)Turns [1] The wisdom of the text is self-destructive (art is true but truth kills itself), but this self-destruction is infinitely displaced in a series of successive rhetorical reversals which, by the endless repetition of the same figure, keep it suspended between truth and the death of truth. [2] … Read more
5. Helen’s “Good Drug” [1] I δύο τὰ πολλὰ τῶν ἀνθρωπίνων. [2] Alcmaeon Were someone to formulate a Foucaultian epistêmê for archaic Greek thought, it might be some version of “polarity.” [3] To begin to study Greek is to learn of its pervasive… Read more
