GREEK EPIC – Literary Journeys

Homer, the “Odyssey” and Greek Epic

Homer (8^th century), the blind bard from Chios, was recognized by Plato and Aristotle, as well as the historian Herodotus (5^th/4^th century BCE) as the poet who composed the Iliad and Odyssey.

Zeus starts the Trojan War to bring an end to the race of heroes by having Helen kidnapped after the judgment of Paris (son of King Priam of Troy) at Thetis and Peleus’s wedding. The Odyssey describes the war’s aftermath and the Greek heroes’ return home, especially Odysseus’s wanderings. The epic is, therefore, among other things, a nostos, or homecoming. Nostalgia, or a longing for the past, is a cognate of the word.

Epic or epikos (Greek) comes from the Greek word epos, ‘word, song,’ and is related to eipein ‘to say.’ This oral expression of song is about the feeling and ethical intent of the speaker rather than the form or subject matter. It is an emotive experience. An epic poem tells a story of deep feeling and ethical significance. You may see this in the stock epithets and traditional phrases. For instance, to personify Dawn, such as Homer does in Book 5.1-3, instead of saying, “the sun came up,” charges the natural world with personality, suggesting its involvement in human affairs.

Elements of the Odyssey’s narrative structure:

oral tradition, it is being sung
it has repetitive elements
a set meter
uses epithets
begins in medias res
common themes, such as revenge, recklessness, belly & consumption, hospitality, sacrifice to the gods, singers and bards (storytellers), homecoming, battle, deception, loyalty, fate, metis (cunning, wisdom, skill and craft), family, kingship, and restoration of power
a hero of great national or cosmic importance
the setting is ample in scale, ie: the Mediterranean basin, the underworld
the action involves extraordinary deeds in battle, or an arduous and dangerous journey
gods and goddesses take an interest in the action
epic similes

Homer’s epics were sung for entertainment and in poetry contests. They were works of memory and spoken aloud even after the papyrus scroll was used and these poems were first written down.

The Odyssey (1.1-27)

In classical hexameter, the six feet follow these rules:

A foot can be made up of two long syllables (– –), a spondee; or a long and two short syllables, a dactyl (– υ υ).
The first four feet can contain either one of them.
The fifth is almost always a dactyl, and the last must be a spondee.