Odyssey background …

Trojan war – probably an historic conflict. Ancient Athenians dated it ~1194 – 1184 BC; probably approximately correct

Sources – full list of literary sources would fill a book (literally) but not surviving “original” i.e. ancient text tells the story of the whole conflict.

Legend, in brief:

Zeus: too many people; will start a war to depopulate the earth.

Eris (goddess of discord) brings Golden Apple “to the fairest” to Paris, prince of Troy, to choose btw. Hera, Athene, Aphrodite. Paris chooses Aphrodite; in thanks, causes Helen, most beautiful woman on earth (parentage: Leda & Zeus (swan)) to fall in love w/ him. Paris & Helen elope after diplomatic mission to Sparta.

Achaean (Greek) forces gather under Agamemnon

Odysseus feigns madness to avoid going – plows salt under his fields – envoy tricks him by placing son Telemachus in the path of his plow. Avoids, demonstrates his sanity.

Various obstacles en route to Troy; 9 years of siege, poorly documented.

Achilles (hero) story in Iliad

Odysseus: the horse -> sack of Troy

Sacriligious acts – many smaller texts recount these

Gods decide most Achaeans will not return home.

* * *

Homer: what we think we know --

Traditionally, an epic poet, thought to be the singular source of both the Iliad and Odyssey; some modern skepticism around this point.

~850 BC, according to Herodotus (450 BC)

Legend – passed down by Homeric bards (singers/reciters of epic songs); subject of a hero cult

Name meanings – hostage/slave; blind (x p2 4/28)

Texts committed to writing btw 7-600 BC as trade w/ Egypt improved, allowing for sufficient quantity of papyrus -> passed through a standardizing redaction, i.e. versions stabilized in this time

Well known to readers & audiences of classical Athens, i.e. world of Sophocles, Socrates, Plato, etc.

Late antiquity (late Roman) knowledge of Greek declined; not widely read again in Europe until 15^th C.

* * *

Into Odyssey Book I –

Maps – see pp. 347 ff.

Geography of the story – on the map and off

Ithaca

Other Greek landscapes (Pylos, Sparta)

Mythical lands (Calypso’s island, coasts & islands of Odysseus’ adventure, incl. Land of the Lotus Eaters, Laestrygonians, Cyclops, Phaeacians, etc.) & underworld (Hades)

Troy & surrounding plain & beaches (through flashbacks)

Olympus (Gods)

Social contrasts –

Aristocratic / proletarian

Male / female

Human / divine / monstrous

Genuine / false nobility or heroism

Central characters move among these landscapes –

Odysseus

Telemachus

Nausicaa

Eumaeus

Athene

W/ exception of obvious flashbacks & reminiscences (i.e. when Odysseus tells his own story to Alcinous of Phaeacia) chronology is strictly linear.