Returns

HUM 2051: Civilization IFall 2013

Dr. PerdigaoSeptember 13-16, 2013

Narrative Strands• Book XIII—“Ithaca at Last”• Ithaca now unfamiliar: “Man of misery, whose land have I lit

on now? / What are they here—violent, savage, lawless? / or friendly to strangers, god-fearing men?” (360)

• Punishment to Phaeacians

• Athena: “We’re both old hands at the arts of intrigue” (362)

• “Clearly I might have died the same ignoble death / as Agamemnon, bled white in my own house too, / if you had never revealed this to me now, / goddess, point by point. / Come, weave us a scheme so I can pay them back!” (364)

• Eumaeus

• Eurycleia

Narrative Strands• Odysseus’ response to the journey to the underworld: “What

good can come of grief?” (328); as model for the story

• House in ruins: Order

• Meeting with Achilles, offered choice between short, glorious life or long life—here switches opinion (340, 553)

• The whole warrior code that informed The Iliad is called into question

• Odysseus: Agamemnon—underworld, parallels

• Caution about reentry, subtlety, cunning

• Difference between murder and survival

• Telling of story: Demodocus, Odysseus, Sirens

Dualisms, Dichotomies

• Order/disorder

• Courtesy/discourtesy (who respects strangers: gods: humans—all rites, rituals between worlds)

• Restraint/rage

• Civilized/barbaric

• Father/son

• Odysseus/Agamemnon

Patterns and Parallels

• Agamemnon/Odysseus parallel: Elpenor (rites to bodies); suitors (no propriety in house)

• Agamemnon appears at end to praise Penelope’s loyalty in a revision of that story and shift from tragedy: comedy (ends with physical union, marriage)

• Final symbol—bed—pillar at center of house; olive tree (center of Greek culture)

• Book XXIV—deus ex machina: Athena appears, resolves all conflict, example of gods’ intervention that we did not see in The Iliad (visible here); now a call for peace

Deus ex Endings

• Telemachus as version of father—parallel to Orestes (454, L117; 455, 144). Odysseus shakes head, sign that Telemachus is able to perform like father, assertion Telemachus is almost grown

• “Purify” house, purging and cleansing

• Poem ends with sexual reunion—common pattern—establishment of order at home (western literary tradition)

• Retelling of entire Odyssey (story within the story) (481, L355)

• Last book—“Peace”—reunion with father, impossibility for Priam

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

• “Sing to me, Muse”

• Sheriff, in pursuit

• Baptism

• Radio station, “soggy Bottom Boys”

• “Man of Constant Sorrow”

• “twists and turns”

• Depression-era struggles

• Sirens

• Cyclops

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

• Penny

• Homer

• Menelaus

• “Keep on the Sunny Side” vs. “Man of Constant Sorrow”

• Fire, water

• “He’s a suitor”

• Paterfamilias

• Loyalty, disloyalty

• Ulysses as drifter

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

• “typical womanly behavior”—Sirens

• In disguise to perform

• “I’m just a stranger”

• Oak tree out front, “ancestral manse”

• “Twists and turns” deposits him there, eluded fate and the sheriff

• “not the law,” law as “human institution”

• Prayer

• Water—salvation, baptism

• Prophecy fulfilled

O Brother, Where Art Thou?

• “All’s well that ends well”