ESSAYS (1): THESES

SENTENCES
 Your essays must have
 A clearly marked off thesis sentence  a thesis statement does two things
 Give the paper a particular angle
 Tell the reader what you will argue.
IT IS FIRST AND FOREMOST YOUR ANSWER TO A QUESTION WE ASK YOU.
 A concluding thought, which is a reformulation of the thesis

 A good thesis is precise

 An analysis of the college admission process reveals one challenge facing counselors: accepting
students with high test scores or students with strong extracurricular backgrounds.
 A bad thesis is: The college admission process poses many challenges for the counselors.
ESSAY (2): ESSAY AND
BETTER ESSAY
 Analyze two convenants and describe how god’s relationship evolves.
 Good essay
 Thesis statement
 Good analysis of passage 1, good analysis of passage 2 based on that thesis.

 Better essay
PREWRITING
 Analysis of passage 1 highlights these three aspects A, B and C
STAGE
 Analysis of passage 2 highlights these three aspects A, C and D.
 Thesis statement
 Paragraph 1: God’s relationship is founded on factor A
 Examples from Passage 1 + 2
 Paragraph 2: God’s relationship is founded on factor C
 Examples from passage 1+2
 Paragraph 3: We can note some divergences in factors B and D
 Examples from passage 1+2
COUPLE DEFINITIONS
 Analepsis: a form of anachrony by which some of the events of a story are related at a point in
the narrative after later story events have already been recounted. Commonly referred to as
retrospection or flashback, analepsis enables a storyteller to fill in background information
about characters and events.
 Allomorph: a form related to another form but differing meaning based on context. This is a
linguistic definition primarily.
 Ex: Phaetians vs. Phoenicians in the Odyssey
 That’s all I can say about that.

 A conditional statement is made up of a PROTASIS and an APODOSIS:

 If I go to bed early  PROTASIS
 I will still need coffee when I wake up  APODOSIS
CLEVER
ODYSSEUS
BALANCING ACTS IN THE
ANCIENT WORLD
Dyad/
Triad
Dyptich
 BALANCING ACTS IN THE
ODYSSEY Protasis: condition. IF part of a conditional.
The Curse of Prometheus

Or if it is Apodosis: consequence 1 – expressed in

greek by an aorist optative ἔλθοι
Fated that he will see his family,

Then let him get there late and with no honor, Apodosis: consequence 2 – expressed in the
greek by a second aorist optative εὕροι
In pain and lacking ships, and having caused

The death of all his men, and let him find THEREFORE: the curse of Prometheus mirrors
the dyadic plot of the Odyssey: the first part is
More trouble in his own house. the nostos, the second is Odysseus finding his
house in disarray.
OTHER DIVISIONAL MODES  Balancing acts do not detract from the overall unity
of the work.
Books 1-12 Books 13-24  Enjambment: running over of the sense and
Telemachy (1-4) Arrival (13-16) grammatical structure from one verse to the next
without punctuated pause.
Phaetians (5-8) Abuses (17-20)  Ex: its loveliness increases; it will never/Pass into
Apologue (9-12) Revenge (21-24) nothingness.
 Thematic enjambment between sections
 Book 12: ”why should I tell/the story that I told you and
your wife/yesterday in your house? It is
These are thematic arragements within the annoying,/repeating tales that have been told before.
Odyssey. It is unclear whether Homer  Book 13: After he finished, all were silent,
organized his work in books, but his editors spellbound/sitting inside the shadowy hall.
did. Probably his editors.  Semantic repetition of κηληθμῷ (enchantment) which you
find at 11.333-334 when he first ended his narration
ODYSSEUS
RETURNS HOME
A VERY QUICK SUMMARY OF BOOKS 13-19, which you ought to know from
reading about these books.
A CHANGE OF LUCK?
 Odysseus:
“I am grateful
To you for giving me my heart’s desire:
A passage home with gifts. I hope the gods
Maintain my luck. When I am home, I pray
To find my wife still faultless and my loved
ones/ Safe.”
Odysseus, Od. 12. 40-46
 Gifts: “Far more spoils than he ever would
have won at Troy if he had got out safely.”
Posedion, Od.12.131-141.
 So Odysseus finds himself in luck:
 Gifts  honor when he returns
 Phaecians were famous for their ships:
 as four fine stallions
rush at the whip and race their chariot
Across the track, heads high, an easy canter
So what the ship’s prow raised.
Od. 12.81-84
 No one can catch up to the ship, not even the hawk
 “they rowed so fast that when she reached dry
land, she eached for half her length”
THE ISLAND OF THE
PHAECIANS
 ODYSSEUS AND EUMAEUS
THE SWINEHERD

 Xenia … again
 The swineherd offers Odysseus food and drink.
 One must honor guests and foreigners and strangers
even those much poorer than oneself.
 What I have to give is small, but I will give it gladly.

 “Odysseus sat down and was delighted at this

welcome.”
 Contrast with the suitors
 Their hearts have no compassion! They ignore the
gods, who watch and hate such crimes and bless good
deeds. As a side note: Odysseus almost betrays himself in
the Eumaeus lie. He asks Eumaeus first about his
 Damn Helen and her family! life, thus taking the role of the master in the
 Eumaeus, Od. 14.69 “xenia” relationship/.
NEWS FROM ITHACA
 Eumaeus’s story functions at least in part, to give Odysseus – and therefore us – news.
 Economy of Odysseus’s household, “my lord was very rich.”
 Twelve herds of cattle on the mainland, twelve of sheep and twelve of pigs and twelve of goats. He had to hire
more laborers to help us.
 Odysseus was a good master: “I hesitate to call him by his name, stranger, I would prefer to call him brother
[…] because he loved and cored for me with so much kindness.

 ”His wife and son will not trust travelers who claim to bring them news…”
 Absuse of the situation comes from everywhere.
 Eumaeus does not trust the words of Odysseus  hope is lost in Ithaca.
TELEMACHUS RETURNS
 Penelope
 Pressure from her family to marry Eurymachus
 Generosity with gifts to her father.

 The suitors plan to kill Telemachus

 They are waiting with ships between Ithaca and Same
 But he comes back with gifts
 Bowls and nice dress.

 Theoclymenus the prophet

 Approaches Telemachus and joins his crew
 His prediction  Telemachus will be king

 Meanwhile in Ithaca
 Odysseus asks for news of his father
 DEERS AND LION
 Telemachus has Menelaus say the following: The lion is already here on
Ithaca, says Theoclymenus.
The bed they want to lie down in belongs
To someone truly resolute. As when
A deer lays down her newborn suckling fawns
Inside the leafy den of some fierce lion,
And goes off to the slopes and grassy valleys
To graze. Then he comes back to his own bed
And cruelly destroys both little ones.
Telemachus- Od. 17.126-131
FIRST ENCOUNTERS
 Sees Melantius driving goats for the
banquet.
 Kicks Odysseus to the curb.
 Odysseus is dead and won’t come back.

 Argos the dog  recognizes his master

and dies immediately.
 “the women fail to care for him/slaves do
not want to do their proper work”
 Telemachus: go give food to the poor.
 Odysseus: Oh Zeus Bless Telemachus.
 Differentiate Telemachus from the suitors
Death of Argos, Roman coin, ca. 155
BCE
 ANTINOUS
Pig-Man! You famous idiot! Why did you
Bring this man here? Do we not have already
Plenty of homeless people coming here
To spoil our feast? Is it not bad enough
That they crowd round and eat your master’s
wealth?
You had to ask this other one as well?
Antinous, Od. Od. 17. 375-381
Penelope Od.16.420-422: The people say
you are the smartest boy of all your age on
Ithaca. It is not true.
Medon, Od. 17.174-176: My lords, you
have enjoyed your games. Now come
inside to eat. There is no harm in having
meals at proper times.
Citing each point were the Suitors are
called shameless and they are wasting
the house of Odysseus would require
way too many slides.
A SUMMARY OF BOOKS 18-20

The fight between Odysseus and Irus

ODYSSEUS THE
NARRATOR
Half Truths, Lies and Manipulations
 ODYSSEUS IS A TRICKSTER
 Odysseus does not recognize his island
 Athena surrounds him in myst.
 He blames the gods and the Phaecians
 Encounters Athena, dressed as a shepherd

 A battle of wits ensues (see next slide)

 Athena: “To outwit you/in all your ticks, a person or a
god/would need to be an expert at deceit” (Od. 13.292-294)
 A crticism of the gods?
 Athena: “I always next to you, and have come with a plan.”
 Odysseus: “Really? Where were you after Troy?”
 I did not wish to fight with my father’s brother

 The closing of the Telemachy:

 I guided him myself so that he might glory by his journey.
Rienk Keyert- Odysseus and
Athena (1750).
ODYSSEUS THE TRICKSTER
(GROUP WORK)
 Fives “lies” of Odysseus
 13.253-286: to Athena/Sepherd
 14.192-359: to Eumaeus the swineherd
 17.415-444: to Antinous
 19.165-299: to Penelope
 24.244-314: to Laertes.

 Question 1: Remembering the two

passages you have read, what are the
elements of Odysseus’s new identity?
 Question 2: How do you know that
Odysseus lies?

Hermes: the trickster God

ODYSSEUS’S FIRST LIE
He did not
tell her the truth; he bit his story back
His mind was always full of clever schemes
(Od. 13.253-255)
 Lie
 Distant Crete (lie)
 Killed Orsilochus (made up), son of Idomeneus
(was with Idomeneus)
 Manner of death is a lie as well.
 Exile after murder is a homeric trope
 Led his own men to Troy (true)
 Cretan noble? Warrior certainly.
A coin depicting Odysseus
 Phoencians (half truth)
 Deceit by the Phoenicians (half truth)
ELEMENTS OF ODYSSEUS’S
“LIES”
Athena Odysseus

 You must be a foreigner from distant parts  I come from distant Crete
 I think the name Ithaca is even known in
Troy,
 Yes I have heard of Ithaca,
A land they say is far from Greece

There is one other element: the Phoenicians echo which people?

Phoenicians as Phaetians (allomorph)

1) Aliteration: Φοίνικας, Φαιήκων
2) Phoenicians left (the guy) with his gifts, Phaecians left him with his gifts
3) Culture: Phoenicians are famous for their ships
 WHY TRANSLATIONS ARE
WEIRD…
 Introduced by

Odysseus said cunningly*, “I will/

Tell you the truth, the whole truth.” (Od. 14.190-
191)
 Other translations
 A.T. Murray: Odysseus of many wiles
 Fagles: The great Odysseus, long in exile,
answered.
 Johnston: Resourceful lord Odysseus answered him

 Πολύμητις: Πολύ (much), μητις (wisdom, skill,

craft, plans).
 Question: Does Homer indicate that Odysseus
will deceive Eumaeus?
 Watson  yes
Charles V orders the translation of
 Fagles  no
Aristotle, 1370
 Johnston  maybe
THE EUMAEUS “LIE”
 O. starts by saying he will tell the truth
 Uses his “Cretan” origin lie.
 Riches to rags story

 Appeal to Eumaeus’s own story

I will never have so kind a master […]
I go back to the home of my own parents
Who gave me birth and brought me up. I wish
That I could see them in my native land
 Odysseus
 Son a wealthy Cretan, lost at sea, slave in
Thesprotia.

Odysseus lost on a Raft (4th cent. BC)

 THE TRUTHS IN THE LIES
Eumaeus “Lie”
Greeks sack Troy in the tenth year/ sailed home (Od.
14.237-28)
Some god/ scattered the Greeks and I was cursed by Zeus
(Od. 14.240-241)
I told the loyal men to wait and guard/ the ships while I
sent scouts to check around/from points of higher
grounds (Od. 14.258-260)
But they indulged in their own aggressive impulses/and
started to do damage to the fields/of Egypt …
danger/lurked on every side (Od. 14.260-273)
Zeus planned to destroy the crew…Thesprotia (Od. 14.
300-316)
Pheidon helps because his son found him ”all worn out
shivering, chilled by the morning air” (Od. 14.311-319)
Odysseus’s real story
Greeks sack troy in the tenth year/ sail home (Od.3.118-
120)
Zeus planned a bitter journey home + Gray-haired
Athena… brougt about disaster (Od. 3.131-135)
“My loyal friends! Stay here, the rest of you,/while my
boat and crew and I go to check/who those men are.”
(Od. 10. 172-175)
Cicones episde (Od. 10.61-76)
Episode after Zeus sinks the ship (Od. 12. 400-449)
Pheidon as Alcinous and his son as Nausicaa (Od. 6)
JÖRGENSEN’S LAW
 The first-person narrator has an experiential perspective different from that of the omniscient
epic narrator, the hero is therefore ignorant of the identity of the god responsible for his
good/back luck
 Note: Odysseus blames Zeus not Poseidon.
 Established by classicit Ove Jörgensen in 1904, in his article “Das Auftreten der Götter in den
Büchern 1-μ der Odysee,” Hermes 39: 357-382.
PENELOPE
 Which elements of the lie Odysseus tells Penelope are “anchored” in his lived experience
(Books 9-12)?
 Margaret Atwood, in the Penelopeiad, has Penelope say:

“His disguise was well enough done – I hoped the wrinkles and baldness were part of the act,
and not real – but as soon as I saw that barrel chest and those short legs I had a deep suspicion,
which became a certainty when I heard he’d broken the neck of a belligerent fellow panhandler”
(p.99).
Do you reckon Penelope recognized Odysseus?
 PENELOPE
 Section opens with the same:
 τὴν δ' ἀπαμειβόμενος προσέφη πολύμητις Ὀδυσσεύς
(same line as he uses with Eumaeus)
 Watson: “master of deception”
 We know he won’t tell the truth

 Speech divided in three sections

 19.165-204: Back-story + how he knows about
Odysseus
 19.221-249: Odysseus’s visit to Crete
 19.259-308: What he has heard about Odysseus.

Odysseus and Penelope (ca. 450 BCE).

Terracotta from Milo, Greece
THE STRUCTURE OF
ODYSSEUS’S LIE TO
PENELOPE
 Triadic structure.
 Each time, Odysseus seens Penelope’s
reaction: weeping, increased grief,
recomposes herself.
 Odysseus is Aethon the son of Idomeneus
 Elements
 19.165-204: Cape Malea (9.79-81)
 19.221-249: the cloak  part of Odysseus’s
traditional outfit
 19.259-308: Thrinacian episode (12.260-
425); land of the Phaecians; Pheidon as
Alcinous again; gathering wealth.
Pompei fresco of Odysseus and
Penelope.
Did Odysseus go to Crete before Troy?
NEXT WEEK: LAST LECTURE ON ODYSSEY
+ CRITICAL THINKING IN THE HOMERIC
EPICS
CONCLUSIONS
LIST OF TERMS
Analepsis Allomorph Dyad Triad Pentad
Protasis Apodosis Enjambment Phaecians Alcinous
Eumaeus Theoclymenus Argos Xenia Antinous
Crete Idomeneus Aethon Thesprotia Jörgensen’s Law
Penelope Penelopeiad
QUESTIONS
 What is the relationship between Odysseus and Athena?
 What is the point of Odysseus being disguised as a beggar?
 How is the suitor’s fate tragic irony?
 What is the structure of Odysseus’s Cretan lies?
 How does Odysseus “lie”?

 How does Homer, in fact, indicate that the audience should not believe the tales of Odysseus?
 LITERARY ELEMENTS OF
ODYSSEUS’S LIES
Athena Eumaeus Antinous* Penelope Laertes
Cretan/Cyprus x x x x
Idomeneus/royalty x x x x
Troy x x x
Egypt x x
Phoenicians x x
Storm x x x
Thesprotia x x
Odysseus x x x

* The tale of Antinous plays out a bit differently.