December 6, 2011Freshman HumanitiesMr. Cabat

Aim: “Sing, O Muse:”Homer, the Trojan War and the Birth of Western Literature

***SCHEDULE NOTES***

12/7 – Peer Drug Educators Presentation12/8 & 12/9 – Individual Reading Workshops on The

Odyssey (Vocab quiz #3 on 12/8)12/12 & 12/13 – Book Club Workshops on The Odyssey

(Medea essays due on 12/12)12/14-12/15 – Prep for Odyssey Presentations12/16-12/23 – Odyssey Presentations

Do Now: The Golden Apple

If you had the choice, which of the following would you choose, and why: to be the wisest person in the world to be the richest person in the world to be married to the most beautiful or

handsome person in the world

First, a Brief Word on Homer

•We know next to nothing about Homer, apart from the fact that he was probably blind•We can make an educated guess that his two-part epic poem, The Iliad (named for Ilium, the Greek word for Troy) and The Odyssey (named for its main character, Odysseus), were written around 800 B.C. (about 300 years before Medea, so we cheated a bit)•Several other poems, odes and hymns are attributed to him, but nothing is certain•There is little doubt that while the story had been sung (literally) for centuries before his time, Homer was the first to write them down

Guess What? There Actually Was a Troy

We know this because in the early 1870’s, a German archaeologist named Schliemann discovered the ruins of the city.

We estimate that the war between Troy and the Greek kingdoms (remember, there was no Greece then) probably happened around 1200 B.C.

Right about now, the line between history and myth starts to get a bit fuzzy…

“Is this the face that launched a thousand ships,and burned the topless towers of Ilium?”

It all begins with that golden apple… Long story short: Paris, Prince of Troy, visits the Spartan king

Menelaus. With the help of the goddess Aphrodite, he kidnaps a surprisingly willing Helen and takes her back to Troy.

Menelaus calls upon his fellow kings, including his brother Agamemnon, the old and wise Nestor and the clever Odysseus to form an army, sail to Troy and bring Helen back

Agamemnon is the leader of the army, but its greatest warrior is the fabled Achilles, sun of Thetis and basically a demigod (like a certain dude from Uruk we know and love)

Sounds simple enough, right? We’ll be home in a couple of months, tops…

Well, Things Don’t Go All That Smoothly

..in fact, the Iliad opens 9 years after Helen’s kidnapping, with the Greek army still trying to conquer Troy.

They have struggled for all these years for three basic reasons: the constant in-fighting among the Greeks (at the start of the

book, Achilles is pouting in his tent, refusing to fight) the heroism of many of the Trojan warriors, particularly

Hector, brother of Paris and son of King Priam the fact that the gods are constantly taking sides and

interfering. Pay particular attention to Athena (big supporter of Odysseus) and Poseidon (hater)

After much give and take, Achilles, angered by the death of his friend Patrocles, fights Hector man to man and kills him, dragging his body around the gates of Troy tied to the back of his chariot

The Iliad ends on a somber note as King Priam comes to Achilles’ tent to beg for the return of his son’s body. Achilles, moved by the old man’s tears, agrees.

Wait, Wasn’t There Something About a Big Wooden Horse?

Yup. But we don’t actually get to see the end of the Trojan War. In The Odyssey, we hear Menelaus tell the story of Odysseus’ brilliant idea that wins the war. Troy is burned, and there is only one survivor (although there may be one more…)

The victory comes at a steep price for the clever king, however. Poseidon, angered that his beloved Troy was burned to the ground, punishes Odysseus by making the voyage home (which should have taken a couple of weeks) into a 10-year disaster.

The story of his voyage home is the main action of The Odyssey.

Meanwhile, Back In Ithaca…

While we will be focusing mostly on Odysseus’ voyage home, there are two other important stories happening in the background:

There is the story of Penelope, Odysseus’ faithful wife, who has spent years fending off a group of suitors who keep telling her that her husband has to be dead and that she should remarry

And the story of Telemachus, who was an infant when his father left for Troy. Now a young man, he decides to stop sitting around for Dad to come home. He sets off on his own adventurous voyage, visiting the kings and soldiers who fought alongside his father, piecing together the story of what might have happened to Odysseus.

A Final Thought

A professor of mine once said that there are two kinds of people in the world. “Iliad” people live for adventure and are focused on the external world. “Odyssey” people are internally focused, centering there energies on “returning home.”

Which are you?

Homework

If you haven’t done so already, please go to mrcabat.com, click on the link and download the copy of The Odyssey as an e-Pub.

Vocab quiz on Thursday.Medea essay due on Monday.