A note on documentation: The Internet is "unregulated" meaning that materials that appear may or may not be the work of an author. It is important that documentation rules as outlined in the STYLE BOOK be observed for purposes of your papers. In what follows, for example, the following sources were used:
1. You instructor's research
2 .Plato's REPUBLIC
3. Hesiod's THEOGONY
4. Homer's ODYSSEY and ILIAD
5. Project PERSEUS from Tuft's University--see "Student Curriculum Links" This is an excellent WEB site for classical research
6. Materials provided by colleagues.
The Odyssey is not only the greatest adventure story of all time, as the recent successful movie presentation on TV shows, but it is also a major document in the growth of the west. While its literary value is hard to miss--Homer for example is the first writer to coin the most important figure of speech in literature, the simile [epic simile]--its broader culture value can be to lost to us unless we see the work as mimetic of Greek culture, some details of which follow.
1. THE TROJAN WAR--fact? myth?
The Trojan war, the curiosity of Odysseus,-the strange monsters he encountered, even Homer's own attitudes, are all related to one great historical phenomenon. Before Odysseus' time in the 12th century B.C., the peoples of Greece were expanding restlessly, first toward the southeast and east, and then toward the west. These migrations reached such proportions that, historically speaking, they are surpassed only by the colonization of the new world.
Achaeans, Argives, Danaans, as - Homer usually calls his Greeks--were a mixture of Mediterranean and northern peoples who by 1500 B.C. had become a major power in and around the Aegean Sea. Their rulers lived in massive walled fortresses built on high ground. Their most powerful overlord reigned at Mycenae on low hills above the Argive plain, six miles northeast of Argos, where the stone fortifications, "beehive tombs," and famous lion gate, all recently unearthed by archaeologists , are still standing.
About 1550 B.C., the Mycenaeans were powerful enough to subdue the Minoan Empire, based on "wide Crete," largest island to the south of the Greek mainland. They occupied Knossus,s the Cretan capital, and sacked the magnificent palace of King Minos, which, with "labyrinth of the Minataur". (This too has been uncovered, and, partly restored, by modern scientists.)
Expanding east across hundreds of islands scattered through the Aegean Sea, the Mycenaeans next eyed the wheat fields and gold of Asia. To reach the Black Sea, they had to pass through the Dardanelles, and just three miles inside those straits stood the city of Troy, which controlled the passage and probably collected tolls.
For some time the Greeks and the Trojans maintained respectful if not cordial relations, but the economic friction increased until it could be fanned into warfare by the slightest provocation. According to Greek tradition, this provocation came when Paris, son of King Priam of Troy, visited King Menelaus of Sparta, fell in love with his wife Helen,'and perhaps with her full consent, carried her off to Troy.
Actually, commercial rivalry and the reluctance o the Greek traders to continue to pay tribute to the Trojans were the likeliest causes of the war. About a century after the Trojan war, the Dorians, northern migrants armed with iron weapons, hacked their way down into Greece. The citadel of Pylos was destroyed, Mycenae declined into an unassuming community, the old and new populations finally blended, and the exhausted Greek world fell into a kind of Dark Age, with economic depression and unstable political conditions.
2. GREEK SOCIETY AND GOVERNMENT:
Through all the centuries we have traced--from the Mycenaean supremacy (1250) to Homer's day, (750), the Greeks were always a loosely federated people. This was largely the doing of environment.--the typical Greek community was either in a valley or on an island, isolated either by mountains or by the sea. Rivers, raging in winter and shrinking dry in summer, were non-navigable. Often the best communication between tow mainland towns was by coastal ship.
As a result, communities tended to be politically independent; the largest was the so-called city state, an area looking to a metropolis, literally a "mother-city" like Athens. In THE ODYSSEY, Ithaca has little contact with the rest of Greece; the Pheacians jealously guard their insularity and consider Euboea, just on the other side of the Greek mainland, "the fortress of any place." Nestor, Menelaus, Alcinuous are kings of almost separate worlds.
Each little society consisted, typically of three classes: hereditary nobles, freemen, and slaves. The king was not an absolute ruler, and his title was not necessarily hereditary. Rather, he ruled with the consent of other nobles: he was first among equals. Odysseus has succeeded his father to the kingship, apparently because he had demonstrated his right to the succession, but Telemachus might not succeed Odysseus. For one thing, he has not yet proved himself, for another, his mother is still alive and the noble who marries a king's widow might thereby claim the throne himself. Note therefore the importance of Books I to IV.
Nobles, landholders, and fighting freemen constituted the assembly a sort of incipient court and legislature. Only persons of high degree could convene an assembly, and only for important matters. During Odysseus' nineteen-year absence, there has been no meeting o these counselors, and Telemachus calls them together on problem affecting the royal house. They could not, apparently, initiate action: they were convoked to hear announcements and to discuss problems and cases put to them. When they do assemble on their own authority, it is a sign of revolt. Once they had been consulted, their advice and opinion, being matters of public knowledge, could not easily be flouted. Notice that even in a military assembly, Odysseus feels he must go along with the majority. The suitors, powerful enough to risk the displeasure of the queen and the king's son, nevertheless fear Penelope and Telemachus if they gain the support of the assembly.
In a formal assembly, when a man asked for permission to speak, a herald would lend him a staff or baton that indicated that he had the floor. Augurs, members of the priestly class, would watch for sings in the heavens that might indicate how the gods felt on the subject. Note how Homer uses epic simile to dramatize these moments. Since the king was also usually the high priest, he and the augur, as ancient history makes clear, often found it possible to outwit the majority by receiving only signs favorable to their own view.
There was no written law, simply custom and the king's will as modified by public opinion, hence the importance of assembly. One important outcome was the LEX TALIONIS, the "law of retaliation". If a man's family had been wronged, and he had tested the reaction of the assembly, and gotten sufficiently strong sanction, he could assume his right to seek revenge by direct action. In certain cases, he would be expected to seek revenge as a duty. But a man who hesitated to take direct personal action even when in the right became he might then have to go into exile, or take World Literature with Dr. Nighan.
Exile was feared because a man alone, away from the protection of his family and community, had to throw himself on the mercy of strangers, and he could very likely be seized and sold into slavery to join that lowest class of unfortunates. In the ancient world, a man could be a prince one day, a slave the next. The slaveŐs fate was a matter of the master's whim. Eumaeus could not marry unless he master assigned him a bride. King Laertes had every right to use Eurycleia sexually. Although Odysseus feared reprisal for killing the suitors, he executed the slave girls with impunity.
Socially and politically, heroic Greek society was patriarchal. Queens many have taken part in official occasions, may even have acted in a custodial capacity during a king's absence, but generally , women were frequently missing from the banquet and place of assembly. Note, however, the importance that women play in THE ODYSSEY. A woman had two concerns--marriage and home, and marriage was arranged for her by her father. In both her parents' house and her husband's, her world was limited to the kitchen, loom, washing cisterns, and servants' quarters. Speech, Telemachus tells his mother, is a manŐs matter, and she must relinquish her custodianship. She does have, however, the protection and dignity afforded her by the system of dowry. Note how important all of this is to THE ODYSSEY.
Marriage was generally outside of one's family, but their are hints inTHE ODYSSEY that this was relatively new. The rational this custom was to increase the numbers of one's close and brave allies. This is explicitly stressed, while instances of incestuous marriage are mentioned often.
Best evidences of patriarchy are the ancient habit of blaming the world's woe on women and the practices of the "double standard". Great Homeric heroes tend to be promiscuous in their own sexual relations, but scandalized at the though of a "faithless" woman, but the Greek woman was not just property, a good personal relationship between men and women was valued. Note in the poem how both human and divine women play a key role in the development of Odysseus' character.
Everyone, man or woman, commoner or king, was expected to lead an active life, and the this meant to an extraordinary degree, according to our experience--an outdoor life. Nausicaa, a princess, not only supervises the laundering, she treads the clothes herself. Helen, a queen of divine descent, brings her sowing into a social situation. Odysseus has not only engaged in tasks like hunting--recall the scar incident, but has tended the vines, built stone walls, doors, inlaid furniture, and made an impressive bed. One of the main proofs of the worthlessness of the suitors is that they are unproductive looters who read Cliff Notes.
The splendid Mediterranean climate, with clear skies and fresh dry air most of the time, encouraged the Greeks to conduct not only their agricultural pursuits out in the open, but also most of their daytime business and social activities. Men built their living quarters around open courtyards, judged legal matters in the roofless marketplace, held their political assemblies under the sky and congregated on the beaches by the thousands for religious festivals. Along with this love for nature went pride in athletic talents and constant cleanliness--the clean body was idolized in almost ritual bathing.
3. GREEK MYTHOLOGY AND RELIGIONS:
Ancient Greeks tried to understand the unknown in terms of what was already known. What causes the sun to rise and set, vegetation to die and return, men to submit helplessly to the passions of love and war? One way to account for these phenomena and to deal with them was to personify them, and hence the evolution of the Greek myths began. Note the following definitions of myths:
a. Result of imaginative reflection; the precursor of science, striking on natural phenomenon and religious belief.
b. Transmission of cumulative knowledge and experience and universal truths consistent in human experience through symbols.
c. Stories told about man's relationship with nature, localized in time / place. Anthropomorphic. (Tolkien)
d. Imitation of actions near or at the conceivable limits of desire. (Frye)
e. The first function of a mythology is to waken and maintain in the individual a sense of wonder and participation in the mystery of this finally inscrutable universe...the second function is to fill every particle and quarter of the current cosmological image with its measure of this mystical import...the third function...is the sociological one of validating and maintaining whatever moral system and manner of life-customs may be peculiar to the local culture...the fourth, and final, essential function of mythology, then, is the pedagogical one of conducting individuals in harmony through the passages of human life, from the stages of dependency in childhood to the responsibilities of maturity, and on to old age... The principal method of mythology is the poetic, that of analogy.. death by sleep, or vice versa; and the experiences of sleep then as the (supposed) experiences of death; the light of the sun as of consciousness; the darkness of caves, or of the ocean depth, as of death, or of the womb... (Campbell)
MYTH OUTLINE FOR THE ODYSSEY
I. THE ORIGIN OF MAN ACCORDING TO THE MYTHOLOGIES
A. MYTH = 'I INVENT' - A STORY OF MANŐS ORIGINS
B. CREATION OF THE WORLD BY THE GODS
C. THE EXPLOITS OF HEROES LIKE ACHILLES / HECTOR
II. HOW TO UNDERSTAND NATURE IN A PRE-SCIENTIFIC
AGE:
A. MACROCOSM AND MICROCOSM
B. RECONCILIATION OF OPPOSITES
C. PERSONIFICATION--ENDOWMENT OF THINGS-
ANIMISM
D. NATURE BECOMES ALIVE AND HELPS US DETERMINE
WHO WE ARE, AND WHAT IS OUT THERE?
E. ROLE OF METAPHOR--RECONCILIATION BINARIES:
D. WHAT BINARIES ARE IN THE ODYSSEY--WHAT
OPPOSITES NEED TO BE RECONCILED?
III. THE ROLE OF THE IMAGINATION AND THE CREATIVE
PROCESS IS ESSENTIAL.
A. IN BEOWULF, WE HAVE THE MONSTERS
B. IN THE ODYSSEY, WE HAVE THE GODS
C. IN PARADISE LOST, WE HAVE SATAN AND GOD
IV. ALL THIS LEADS TO WHETHER THERE IS A GRAND DESIGN
THAT MAN CAN TRY TO UNDERSTAND--THIS WILL
EVENTUALLY LEAD TO RULES FOR BEHAVIOR:
A. FOLK WAYS
B. MORES
C. EPIC LANGUAGE: 1. COMITATUS IN BEOWULF--WORD / TREASURE
HOARD 2. ODYSSEY--THE HONOR CODE: WHAT FAMILY VIOLATES AND WHAT FAMILY UPHOLDS THE CODE?
V. USEFULNESS OF MYTH
A. UNIFYING SYMBOL OF THE SOCIAL GROUP--
FRATERNAL UNION--NEED TO RECONCILE AND
BELONG VS. SPLENDID ISOLATION OF THE HERO
LIKE ODYSSEUS--NOTE HIS FUNDAMENTAL CHOICE
B. KEEP ALIVE THE SENSE OF THE SUPERNATURAL--
THAT SOMETHING ELSE IS OUT THERE
C. DEVELOPS A PRAYER MENTALITY--STAR TREK:
"THE TROUBLE WITH A BELIEF IN THE
SUPERNATURAL IS TRYING TO FIGURE
OUT WHAT IT WANTS"
D. EPIC CONVENTIONS: 1. WHAT THE BARD SAYS 2. INVOCATION TO THE MUSE 3. DIVINE REVELATION 4. DEUS EX MACHINA 5. THE SACRED TEXTS 6. TRANSCENDENCE--ROMANTICS
VI. VARIETIES OF MYTHS:
A. NATURALISTIC (macrocosmic)--EXPLANATION OF
WHAT NATURE MEANS
B. HISTORICAL (microcosmic)--SOCIAL GROUP KEEPS
LINKS TO THE PAST--DIFFUSION IN TIME AND IN
SPACE--TOLKIEN
C. RELIGIOUS--GIVE REASON FOR RITES: 1. SACRIFICIAL RITUALS IN THE ILIAD: 2. THE HOLY SACRIFICE OF THE MASS
VII. PEOPLE WITH EXCEPTIONAL POWERS OF IMAGINATION AND INVENTION, WHO FIRST COMMITTED THE PRIMITIVE MYTHS TO WRITING...
VIII WHAT DO WE KNOW OF HOMER AND THE HOMERIC IMAGINATION?
4. EXAMPLE OF THE GREEK CREATION MYTH FROM THE THEOGONY OF HESIOD...
THE GREEK VIEW OF CREATION DIFFERS FROM THE CHRISTIAN IN SEVERAL WAYS. IN THE CHRISTIAN VIEW, GOD PRE-EXISTS ALL AND MAKES THE UNIVERSE OUT OF NOTHING FROM AN ACT OF HIS WILL. THE GREEK VIEW SAYS THE FOLLOWING: .THE UNIVERSE CREATED THE GODS. CREATION MEANS BRINGING ORDER FROM CHAOS. CERTAIN ENTITIES ALWAYS EXISTED, AND THEIR "CREATION" - ORIGIN IS NOT AN ISSUE. THE POET MILTON PUT IT THUS:"FIRST THERE WAS CHAOS, THE VAST/ IMMEASURABLE ABYSS, OUTRAGEOUS/ AS A SEE, DARK, WASTEFUL, WILD."
5. CREATION:
THE GREEK CREATION MYTHS DIFFER FROM OUR OWN IN THAT GOD DID NOT WILL THE UNIVERSE INTO EXISTENCE FROM NOTHING. THE GODS , IN PLATO'S SCHEME, WORKED WITH PRE-EXISTING IDEAS (FORMS) AND WEDDED THEM TO MATTER TO MAKE THE UNIVERSE. TO USE A ROMANTIC METAPHOR, THE UNIVERSE BEGAN WHEN OPPOSITES RECONCILED:
GAEA--EARTH (FEM) WEDDED WITH OURANOS--HEAVENS (MALE), AND THE WORLD BEGAN.
ONE VERSION OF MAN'S ORIGIN STATES THAT HE EVOLVED THROUGH SEVERAL STAGES:
GOLDEN AGE---similar to a heavenly existence--they knew no constraints & lived in peace--(saints)
SILVER AGE---less intelligent and more prone to war--reckless violence against one another
BRONZE AGE---God like race of heroes and race of warriors-- dreadful...bent on the harsh deeds of war...bronze were their weapons
DIVINE RACE--heroes; demigods--they had sailed to Troy for the sake of lovely-haired Helen
IRON AGE---like man today after the fall, prone to evil--growing cares will be given them by the gods
A simple but important example for readers of THE ODYSSEY is the Greek attitude toward the sea. They depended on fishing for much of their food other than MacDonalds or Roy Rogers, on communication with the islands for their trade. But they were terrified by the open water, they hugged the coast, rarely venturing out far from home as the western end of the Mediterranean. Without charts, logs, compasses or AAA, they could rely only on the simplest kind of "dead reckoning" . Any unknown current, unseen rock, or mild storm was a catastrophe. Note the importance of storms and water disasters in THE ODYSSEY.
Watching with dread as dark clouds gathered, as calm waters suddenly grew furious, as massive waves began to pound them and fierce winds drive them to nowhere, they were appalled at the malevolence of the sea. They could not help seeing it in terms of themselves; this was vindictive wrath directed toward them by some great superhuman power, like one of my test. How had they displeased the power? Not certain perhaps of specific offenses, puny men could make only a general appeal, acknowledging the sea god's greater power, asking for his blessing, mercy, cooperation. If they survived--and surely, before they went aboard ship again--they would make elaborate sacrifice to Poseidon, as they called him, hoping to flatter him to get in his good graces. Note the main cause for Odysseus' troubles.
This conception of a natural force as a supernatural being gave rise to many myths about him, his feats and personality; these myths became the basis for rituals that his worshipers performed in an effort to make contact with him. Mythology then is the essence of ancient religion.
Rituals and myths varied from place to place. Greek mythology might be though of as "political cartoons" that embody (not at times without satire) elemental truths about a culture's development. As such they are fundamentally mimetic. In Greece the "elemental truths" involve what archeology has confirmed--the "...movement from the matriarchal to the patriarchal perspective--from a dominate mother goddess [Gaea], whose realm is the earth and who embodies fertility, to a dominate male sky god who embodies vast power above the earth." [Uranus]. In an agrarian culture, naturally the earth would be worshiped as a source of life. Each tribe glorified a fertility goddess, since from the male perspective, procreation was unknown. From this worship came the fundamental cycle archetype of birth-life-death-rebirth etc. Additionally, since life and death seemed to come from darkness, the moon (in its phases) became associated with this worship. Each tribe had a priestess who embodied the will of the goddess:
"I am the natural mother of all life, the ruler of the elements, the first being, the chief of all gods, the queen of the world below, the first of those in the world above. I govern the light in the sky, the winds in the ocean...My single divine nature is worshiped throughout the world in many forms. Thus early races call me Athena...Aphrodite...Artemis...Hera...." All women were considered her daughters.
Archeology suggests that as aggressive tribes (Achaeans) invaded what would become Greece, their male-dominated religions fused with the female ones described above, and this fusion generated the Olympian gods and goddesses familiar to readers of Homer. In practice the female fertility goddess acquires a male consort, a so-called "sacred-king" who in his youth would be sacrificed so his vitality would be preserved in his successor. Historically, this suggests the Hellenic invasion of, for example, Crete. Archeologists (Evans) confirmed that Knossus was advanced but relatively unfortified. This sacrifice has its parallels. The female 'opposite' gave birth to and nourished the male 'opposite' called Uranus (Sky). Thus the male is above the female, implying of course the mode for procreation (micro), and a fertile harvest (macro): sperm rains down.
The early myths are not without some rather horrid details that probably mime historical reality. Uranus bore Gaea generations of children, some of whom (Titans) were destined to precede the Olympian gods: e.g. Cronus-Zeus Uranus fearing rebellion in his children imprisoned them; Enraged, they and Gaea plotted revenge:
CRONUS: "I will promise to help you punish cruel Uranus..." As day light faded into dusk...Uranus arrived bringing with him the blanket of night. Desiring Gaea's comfort and love, he...embraced his wife, unaware that he lay within an arm's reach of treachery...The reclining god could not see the huge, black sickle shaped shadow waving menacingly above his body. Cronos castrated his father and threw his testicles into the sea.
Of this incident, Hesiod writes,
...with his right hand he
grasped the huge, long, and sharp-toothed sickle and swiftly hacked
off his father's genitals and tossed them behind him and they were not flung from his hand in vain.
Gaia took in all the bloody drops that spattered off, and as the seasons of the
year tuned round she bore the potent Furies ...
As soon as Kronos had lopped off the genitals with the sickle,
he tossed them from the land into the stormy sea.
And as they were carried by the sea a long time, all around them
white foam rose from the god's flesh and in this foam a maiden was nurtured...
Both gods and men call her Aphrodite because she grew out of AFROS, foam
that is And here is the power she had form the start...
from her comes young girl's whispers and smiles and deception
and honey-sweet love and its joyful pleasures.
(Hesiod, Theogony)
Thus is explained the birth of a goddess important in Homer . Recall also her role in the critical judgement of Paris that led to the war. Historically the incident may explain the strong conservative resistance to paternal religions, fused with the agricultural fertility archetype. Helen, for example, was also the name of a Spartan "moon-goddess", marriage to whom made Menelaus a [sacred?] king. During the trade wars, and piracy of the times, woman may have been carried off as slaves in retaliation for a Greek attack on Troy. Note there is a scene in the Odyssey that deals with the issues discussed here in a somewhat satiric and ironic mode.
Zeus represents the male archetype in the Olympian hierarchy; his frequent sexual liaisons suggest the fusion of the male with the various maternal religions. The fact that RAPE often occurs suggests violent resistance to change. See ILIAD XIV, 375 ff.
Hera etc. represent female fertility goddesses. Her name means "protectress." The birth of Athena (wisdom/courage) from Zeus' head implies a "desperate attempt" to rid her of matriarchal conditions. Wisdom was to be seen as a male prerogative.
Historically the suitors of Helen may have been those wishing to negotiate trade rights for the confederacy to navigate the Hellespont. In fact, the naval war to interrupt Troy's hegemony might have taken ten years as opposed to the siege itself. All of this followed the fall of Crete as various tribes on the mainland tried to shape economic destiny.
Thus a God supreme in one city might just be a rumor in another town. The power of love might be represented in adjacent seaports by vividly different goddesses. The appearance of these deities, as revealed in statues, cave murals, and gold jewelry and coins, would depend on the talent of the local wood carver, stone cutter, and metal worker. No one objected to such diversity of religious notions, keeping in mind however, the male/female "contest" noted earlier. Everybody wanted a local patron god as his own special protector, and polytheism was the only type of religion that made sense in the ancient world of chaos. Note in this connection that the Greek definition of creation is bringing order out of chaos.
Here Homer exerted immeasurable influence in shaping the Greek notion of gods. In all this apparent diversity of cosmic forces, Homer saw unity or reconciliation of opposites. In THE ODYSSEY, he portrays the gods in a well organized hierarchy, which is one of the ancestors of what will become the most important idea in the west--the chain of being.
In other words, from hordes of gods and goddesses whom he had heard about in his travels--gods local, vague, and various, Homer selected and glorified those that seemed to represent man's spiritual needs and ideals: 1. the need to belong 2. the need for love 3. the need for order 4. the need for family the need for justice
He depicted all of them as really different of the same father god--Zeus. He invested these gods with memorable personalities--they are anthropomorphic, and he gave them distinct attributes so that each could be visualized by a listening audience. Note in THE ODYSSEY especially the roles of Poseidon and Athena and Zeus. Homer depicted the gods as agents of the civilizing virtues and customs: removal and burial of the dead, hospitality to travelers and strangers, respect for life and property, a sense of balance and order, proportion, the relationship between the macrocosm and microcosm and love for Dr. Nighan.
6. THE EPIC
HOMER is credited with having written or recited the first epic poems. May have lived some 500 years after the Trojan war was fought--the conflict may have occurred about 1250 B.C. The controversy surrounding authorship and method of composition is called the Homeric Question. See the introduction to your text book for more information.
In an epic poem, certain conventions usually appear:
1. invocation to the muse
2. statement of the theme usually in in the form of a question
3. begins in medias res
4. numerous set speeches and considerable repetition
5. epic simile is a major figure of speech ("...as if..." or "...as when...")
6. repetition of epithets, phrases, tags, formulae etc.
7. flashback is frequently used
8. supernatural machinery interfere in mortal affairs--deus ex machina
9. comitatus code in its verbal and physical dimensions is stressed
10. single combat is stressed between champions