The Odyssey

Terms and Conventions

Terms and Conventions Poetics Figurative Language Structure Who's who Places Themes Overview

Image source: http://www.beloit.edu/~classics/main/courses/classics100/museum2/art_museum2.html

Note: This site is designed to be used with Robert Fagles' translation of the Odyssey, published by Penguin USA. It was prepared for a 9th grade English class.

Epic
The Odyssey is an epic, a long narrative poem about the deeds of gods or heroes who embody the values of the culture of which they are they are a part. The oldest epics were transmitted orally and the Odyssey has traits (see the epithet) that suggest that it has roots in this tradition.

Epic Hero
The central hero of an epic, the epic hero has larger-than-life powers. Achilles fulfills this role in the Iliad; Odysseus in the Odyssey. Epic heroes are not perfect. Achilles is stubbornly proud over a long period of time; Odysseus has lapses in judgment. Nevertheless, epic heroes always seem to have an abundance of courage, a fighting spirit that endears them both to the reader (listener) and the gods.

Epithets

Homer repeatedly describes many of his characters or objects in his story with the same phrase. This phrase is called an epithet. Epithets are common epic elements which allow the reader to easily identify the character or object. Epithets stress a quality of what they are describing. The same character often is given several different epithets. The epithet was used as by oral poets to help them "catch their breath" whenever they mention a major figure or describe something familiar and recurring. The epithets were not used to illustrate a specific aspect of the figure at the moment he (she) is being spoken of, but were chosen to fit the meter of the line. Many translators, however, like to fit the epithet to an aspect of the character that is relevant to the moment.

Examples of epithets used in the Odyssey are:

• "The great tactician" - This term creates the image of Odysseus as being intelligent, and probably comes his being the initiator of the idea for the "Trojan horse."
• "The clear eyed goddess" - This helps the reader imagine that Athena is alert, and wise - farseeing.

Here are some more epithets:

• "The man of twists and turns" ( Odysseus)
• "wine-dark sea "
• "The bewitching nymph" (Calypso)
• "Son of Cronos" (Zeus)
• "Who marshals the thunderheads" (Zeus)
• "Cool headed" (Telemachus)
• "Lord of the war cry" (Menelaus)

Narrative drift

Homer is constantly interrupting the narration to elaborate on an aspect of what he is talking about; if he mentions a gift of wine, he will explain not only the history of the gift but the history of the giver. He rarely introduces a character without alluding to that character's genealogy and often follows this with an aside in the form of a story that is told with the same vividness as the main story. The most celebrated of these asides is the story of how Odysseus received the scar that Eurycleia recognizes in book 19.

Odyssey Overview