The Odyssey of Homer: Ithaca Restored (Lecture on Books XVII-XXIV)

'Like a musician stretching a string over a new peg on his lyre, Odysseus strung the great bow. Lifting it up, he plucked the string and it sang beautifully under his touch with a note like a swallow's. '

Welcome back to the world of Ancient Greece. Our epic reaches its climax as Odysseus reveals his true self and finally has his revenge upon the suitors. And after the banquet of blood, peace finally reigns over our hero's home.

Today we're discussing how the oral storytelling tradition survived, reunion, recognition, romance, reading dreams and omens, suspense vs emotional freedom in literature, the Iliad vs the Odyssey, the epic's ending, what happens after this story, and much more.

Please do feel free to enjoy the discussion even if you haven't read these parts of Homer's Odyssey yet. You can enjoy our talk before, during, or after your reading in the way that best suits you.

Timestamps:

0:00 our feet are back on Ithacan soil

2:00 why this is one of my favourite reads

3:00 how clothes truly maketh the man

5:00 homeric word-for-word repetitions

7:00 the survival of ancient oral storytelling

8:00 how the original hearers enjoy the epic

10:00 needing recaps throughout the story

12:00 my ideal film adaptation of Homer

14:00 if I could direct a film of the Odyssey

16:00 Odyssey as meditation on hospitality

17:00 how reflections are often projections

18:00 Odysseus endures Melanthius’ blow

20:00 the elevation of swineherd Eumaeus

22:00 our hero’s reunion with his dog Argus 

24:00 Odysseus finally meets the suitors

26:00 Antinous throws his stool at our hero

28:00 how every man is ultimately a beggar

30:00 Odysseus gives Irus a good hiding

32:00 the homeric sense of foreboding

34:00 how to look at what is to be seen

36:00 Penelope appears before the suitors

38:00 judge the message by the messenger

39:00 conditional gifts in Ancient Greece 

40:00 beggar-king vs insolent Melantho

41:00 when pain becomes pleasurable 

42:00 Penelope speaks with the stranger

44:00 what does the name Aethon mean?

45:00 poetic truth & mythology vs history

46:00 the life-giving wisdom of Penelope

48:00 Eurycleia recognises Odysseus’ scar

50:00 our scars contain our personal stories

52:00 Erich Auerbach’s ‘Odysseus’ Scar’ 

53:00 essential feature of Homer’s aesthetic

54:00 endless present & interpolated stories 

55:00 how Homer gifts us emotional freedom

56:00 Homer leaves nothing unexpressed

58:00 Bible, Dante, Shakespeare & Homer

1:00:00 Homer’s simple picture of human life

1:02:00 nursemaid recognises her master

1:04:00 we are never alone in this world

1:06:00 the prophetic dream of Penelope

1:08:00 our unconscious mind isn’t subtle

1:10:00 the symbolism of shooting arrows

1:12:00 on the prelude to the slaughter

1:14:00 who is the self that hears your thoughts?

1:15:00 even great heroes have feelings of doubt

1:16:00 when Ctessipus throws an ox hoof

1:18:00 the iconic shooting contest begins

1:20:00 Odysseus, Philoetius & Eumaeus

1:22:00 to be a bard is to be a warrior

1:23:00 Odysseus slaughters the suitors

1:24:00 the body of Antinous hits the floor

1:25:00 comedy in the banquet of blood

1:26:00 why do we love revenge narratives?

1:27:00 ‘the net has been drawn around you’

1:28:00 irony in Eurymachus begging for life

1:30:00 Telemachus saves his father in battle

1:31:00 cowherd & swineherd join the fight

1:33:00 figurations from nature in warfare

1:35:00 Odysseus spares the singer of tales

1:37:00 ‘a lion that has just fed upon an ox’

1:38:00 the hero cleanses the palace with fire

1:40:00 the reunion of husband and wife

1:42:00 arrival of the suitors in the underworld

1:43:00 reunion of Odysseus and Laertes

1:44:00 Athena imposes peace upon Ithaca

1:45:00 the structural definition of romance 

1:46:00 where we end up is where we began

1:47:00 appreciating Tennyson’s ‘Ulysses’

1:50:00 what happened after the Odyssey?

1:53:00 what to do after reading Homer?

1:54:00 a very special assignment for you

1:55:00 exploring the Western epic tradition

1:58:00 Daphne du Maurier’s Rebeccca

2:00:00 congratulations on reading Homer

Resources to Explore:

• Fun: The television show Mythbusters practically recreated the seemingly 'impossible' shot of Odysseus here. Could it really be possible to shoot the bow through twelve axe heads just like our wanderer hero? Well, now we know. Also, for readers excited for Christopher Nolan's film adaptation of Homer's epic, set to release next year, this video gives a good rundown of information about what we know so far.

• Translation: Which translation got your through Homer's Odyssey for this read-through? And are their any other translations you're curious about trying in the future? As mentioned during our reading of the Iliad, you might like the idea of picking up another translation and saving it for a future reread. Or picking up another translation just to read the translator's preface (which is almost always fascinating). I'd recommend picking one that is radically different from the translation you just enjoyed. So, if you worked from the Lombardo or Wilson this time, you might go for the Fagles or Fitzgerald next. If you worked from either of them this time, you might choose the Chapman or Pope for a really different feel next time around. If you fell in love with your chosen translation, you could use them as a bridge into other great works. See what else they've turned their hand to. Lombardo, for example, has not only translated Homer, but he has done a tremendous job with Virgil, Ovid, and Dante too.

• Literary Appreciation: Whenever I read Homer, I find myself returning to two landmark works of literary criticism and appreciation. The one that we analysed in this lecture is Erich Auerbach's Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. This work has essays on titans like Homer and Dante through to Virginia Woolf. The opening essay 'Odysseus' Scar' contains some sublime analysis, exploring the difference in aesthetic between Homer and the Bible. The other great work that I love to return to is European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages by Ernst Robert Curtius, which offers a sweeping exploration of the continuity of Western literature across time and space. These aren't works to be read through entirely from start to finish, but are rather good to have on hand and to rifle through with a pen when you're in a curious and contemplative mood.

• Epic Tradition: Now you've tackled one of the foundations of Western Literature, you may find it rewarding to keep exploring the epic tradition (or earmarking other great epics to read in the future). When you explore works like Virgil's Aeneid, Ovid's Metamorphoses, Dante's Divine Comedy, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Joyce's Ulysses (because, in the modern era, the epic went into the novel) you see that these great writers are entering a conversation with their precursors going back to Homer. Each of these great writers is simultaneously indebted to Homer, building upon the gifts of the Iliad and the Odyssey, whilst also striving to revolutionise the tradition with their own unique stamps. Thus we see that the literary tradition is ultimately, as Mortimer Adler would say, a great conversation.

• Action Exercise: Our previous actions exercises have focused on committing your favourite passages to memory. But I would like to issue a bit of a different long-term challenge now that we have read through both of Homer's epics. The challenge is this: could you convince three people to pick up Homer? Anyone counts. Family members, acquaintances, colleagues, online friends, neighbours, strangers in the store, fellow customers in the cafe or passengers on the train. And how would you do it? Would you carry your book with you visibly as a conversation starter? Would you slip an idea from these works into casual conversation? Would you give someone a copy as a gift? Here's the advanced level to this challenge: when you convince another to read Homer, can you suggest them to recommend these works to three people too? This is the concept of paying it forward, but applied to great books. What would the world look like if we managed to get three people to read great works from the likes of Homer, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy? And those three people each convinced three more people? What if we increased the percentage of the population who were able to read a handful of great works each year? My hunch is that the world would steadily become a more loving, sensitive, and thoughtful place, transforming for the better in ways we may not even begin to imagine.

• Our Next Great Story: Congratulations on bringing yourself so powerfully to Homer's epics. You should feel incredibly proud of having read both the Iliad and the Odyssey. This weekend coming, we will be moving into the next thrilling part of our reading journey with our introductory video for Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca. We will discuss everything from our practical approach and pacing to the work's genre, themes, socio-historical context, film adaptations, and the biography of the writer. You don't need to read anything just yet, so, if you like to keep in line with our lectures, use the time to wrap up the Odyssey. But, if you are keen to dive into Daphne du Maurier's dark, gothic, bestselling novel, you may want to kick things off by appreciating and savouring the first chapter, which begins with those iconic lines: 'Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.' I will be working from the Virago Modern Classics paperback edition, although there is a wonderful edition from Everyman's Library available for hardback lovers. As always, feel free to use the edition that you like and that comes most easily to hand. I am tremendously excited to share this next appreciation with you and am so grateful that you have made our read-throughs for the first half of the year so rewarding.

Questions to Consider:

1) What did you make of the epic's ending?

2) How can you return home on the hero's journey of your life?

3) What is your greatest takeaway from journeying through the Odyssey?

4) What area connected with Homer are you most interested in exploring further?

5) How would you persuade another to read Homer's epic? And what advice would you give to facilitate a meaningful reading experience?

And please do share with us your impressions, favourite passages, and personal insights from the end of the Odyssey.

Congratulations on reading Homer's epics, the Iliad & the Odyssey, everybody!