The Odyssey INTRODUCING

How do you define a hero or heroine?

Create a list of character traits heroes and heroines possess. (At least 5)

Choose an individual from our society who represents or embodies your definition and character traits.

MODERN DAY HEROES

• Author of the Illiad and the Odyssey • Homer gathered countless stories, put them together,

and told them as one unified epic (late 8th or early 7th century B.C.)

• Little is truly known about his life!

• Epic: long narrative poems that tell of the adventures of heroes who in some way embody the values of their

civilizations • The Illiad – epic of war

• The Odyssey – epic of the long journey

HOMER

• Odyssey – a series of adventurous journeys usually marked by many changes of fortune.

• Greek word Odusseia– “the story of Odysseus”

• Here’s the story: A Greek hero of the Trojan War took ten years to find his way back from Troy to his home on the

island of Ithaca, off the western coast of mainland Greece.

• What are we dealing with? Adventurous journeys, a change of fortunes, and a hero’s return to even

more adventures and dangers.

• The Trojan War… for kids

THE ODYSSEY

The Trojan War is set up in the Illiad. The Greeks attacked Troy to avenge the insult suffered by Menelaus, kind of

Sparta, when his wife, Helen, ran off with Paris, a young prince of Troy. The Greek kings banded together under the leadership of Agamemnon, the brother of Menelaus. In a thousand ships, they sailed across the Aegean Sea and

encircled the walled city of Troy.

Here’s the deal – the audience of the Odyssey would have known this war story, just like you all know the story of the Royals fighting their way through the World Series. They

would know all about the greatest Greek Warrior, Achilles, just like you all know of Alex Gordon.

BACKGROUND

The Odyssey is a story marked by melancholy and a feeling of postwar disillusionment.

In Homer’s day, heroes were a special class of aristocrats placed between the gods

and ordinary human beings.

• Heroes experienced pain and death• They were always sure of themselves• They were always “on top of the world”

Odysseus was a hero in trouble! • Lost in a world of difficult choices• Cope with unfair authority figures

• Worked very hard to get what he wanted

A HERO IN TROUBLE

• Valor • Affliction • Baleful• Din

• Glutton • Rapine • Eligible • Havoc• Lavish • Audacity

WORDS TO KNOW

• Wield• Virtuous• Lucid

• Prudence• Libation

• Interrogate• Precedence• Harangue• Insidious• Pauper

• Scion• Desolation• Maleficent• Infallible• Bestial• Feign

• Promontory• Ruffian• Chastise• Versatile

• Malignant• Derelict• Succumb• Remiss• Buffet• Averse• Aloof

• Deference• Auspicious• Provender

INTERESTING LANGUAGE (PRONUNCIATION GUIDE)

CONTEXT

OVERVIEW

1. Lost in a world of difficult choices

2. Cope with unfair authority figures

3. Work very hard to get what we want

Can you relate to these challenges? Choose one or combine these challenges. Reflect on your experience

(s) in your notes.

REFLECTION

CHARACTERS

Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide after he had sacked the famous town of Troy. Many cities did he visit, and many were the nations with whose manners and customs he was acquainted; moreover he

suffered much by sea while trying to save his own life and bring his men safely home; but do what he might he could not save his men, for they perished

through their own sheer folly in eating the cattle of the Sun-god Hyperion; so the god prevented them from ever reaching home. Tell me, too, about all these

things, O daughter of Jove, from whatsoever source you may know them.

So now all who escaped death in battle or by shipwreck had got safely home except Ulysses, and he, though he was longing to return to his wife and country,

was detained by the goddess Calypso, who had got him into a large cave and wanted to marry him. But as years went by, there came a time when the gods

settled that he should go back to Ithaca; even then, however, when he was among his own people, his troubles were not yet over; nevertheless all the gods

had now begun to pity him except Neptune, who still persecuted him without ceasing and would not let him get home.

BOOK 1

1. Is Odysseus a hero or a zero?

2. Who faces greater challenges: Penelope, Telemachus, or Odysseus?

3. Who is the character with the most redeeming qualities?

ON-GOING REFLECTIONS