The Odyssey of Homer

One Homer or Many?

     Who was Homer? The earliest Greek Legends reveal only shadowy outlines of his personal history: that he was a minstrel and a native of the Greek speaking regions of the Mediterranean; that he was blind, and that he composed two great epic poems. His Iliad deals with one episode in the Trojan War, the celebrated conflict between the Greeks and the inhabitants of Troy or ilion. The Odyssey portrays the ten year voyage of Odysseus, also called Ulysses to return to his native Ithaca after the war.

     Close analysis reveals certain inconsistencies and repetitions within The Odyssey. Research by Milman Perry with actual mintrels in Yugolsavia, hints that The Odyssey is not the work of one poet. His theory suggests that a minstrel does not write down one unique version, but composes orally and extemporaneously. Based on traditional story lines and formulas, the song differs significantly with each performance. "Homer", then, may only be the last and perhaps the greatest, of a long line of such men.

     Homer's true identity will probably never be resolved, though the character of the poem is clear enough. But referring to one Homer simplifies analysis and satisfies the basic human desire to mark authorship. That is the approach we will take.

Homer's Universe

     The Iliad may have been written around 750 B.C. and The Odyssey some thirty years later, about 720 B.C. But Homer was writing not of the world he and his listeners knew -the scattered, independent communities and city states of Greece-Instead he wrote of the "Golden Age" a time four centuries earlier, when the ancestors of contemporaries were beginning their great migrations into the Mediterranean area. A strong sense of the past colors Homer's charecterizations and the relationships of men to their equals and to their gods.

     In the main, the gods of The Odyssey are the familiar, anthropomorphic Olympians of classic tradition. They are neither all-wise nor all-powerful. The frequent quarrels among them must be settled by Zeus. They are immortal, a trait that supports Homer's portrayal of an afterlife for humans, though not an especially pleasant one even for heroes.

     The gods play important roles in the characters' lives. Thus Odysseus merits the special protection of Athena. And much of his misery on the long voyage home results from Poseidon's wrath, which must be appeased. The anger of the sea-god would have special impact for an audience of island-dwelling Greeks.

     But Homer's characters are not mere puppets or the playthings of supreme gods. Especially striking is the fact that Odysseus can defy a god and, at least partly through his own resourcefulness, in the end, win out. The Odyssey is the affirmation of human life and human values.

Homer's World

     The society described in The Odyssey is clearly aristocratic. Homer's picture of the noble Odysseus and his men points to the hierarchical society. But that structure is tempered somewhat by the role of the Ithacan assembly and more importantly, by the influence of family ties. The key relationships are those of father and son, husband and wife. Just as the family role influences Odysseus, it colors the social order of his island.

      In fact, the island government is as a single unit or "household" called an "oicus" from which our word economy is derived. The character of each individual is defined by his or her position within the oicus. Thus, with Odysseus absent, Telemachus merely a youth, and Penelope frightened, Ithaca becomes chaotic. Beset by unruly suitors, the island must be restored to proper order.

The Master of Epic

     In the literary traditions of the ancient Greeks as well as modern readers, a Homeric epic is a long narrative poem. The epic is long because a great deal must be told; narrative, because it describes a series of heroic events. Besides exciting action, Homer includes other significant features: speeches, lists, battles, athletic games, and descents to the underworld. Later editors divided Homeric epic into 24 books, and that number has remained standard.

     The epic is a poem because it is written in a special measure of verse; dactylic hexameter. Hexameter signals that there are six metrical feet in the line; dactylic, that each foot is dactylic, a heavy syllable followed by two light ones. The sixth foot, however is always a spondee (two heavy syllables). The kind of line is unusaual in English, but is found in Long fellow's Evangeline.

"This is the forest primeval;

The murmuring pines and the hemlocks."

     In addition, Homer forged other traditions for the epic. He viewed the poet as the voice of a higher force. Thus the epic reflects little of the poet's personality; instead, the listeners hear only the spirit of the poetry. More technical aspects that have become traditional "in medias res", Homeric epithets and Homeric similes.

     The events between the fall of Troy and the victorious return of Odysseus span a ten year period. Yet when the poem opens , Odysseus has nearly completed his journey. We learn of his adventures primarily as he recounts them to the Phaeacians. The desciption of the action that begims "in medias res", "in the midst of things", is comparable to the film

director's use of flashbacks. The technique provides variety and perspective which simple chronological order often lacks. 

     Related to "in medias res" are several other techniques. To build tension and suspense, Homer effectively uses foreshadowing. Homeric epithets are brief descriptive formulas of people, gods, or natural events employed throughout the poem. e.g. "rosy-fingered dawn", "wine-dark sea". A simile, a comparison that can enrich both language meaning. Usually Homer's similes compare characters' traits to familiar or concrete objects and events in the natural world-a bird, a woman weeping for her dead husband, a lion; he enhances the image by describing the lion in some detail-a stalking, proud beast with glaring eyes.