Atwood, The Penelopiad
The Penelopiad rewrites Homer’s The Odyssey, in part from the perspective of Odysseus’ wife, Penelope. In this lecture, Jill Fellows discusses how Atwood’s Penelope responds to and questions Homer’s interpretation of her life, while the twelve hanged maids respond to and question Penelope’s own version of events.
Plato, Homer, & Atwood
The focus on the concept of justice and frequent references to Homer in Plato’s Republic made me think about justice as portrayed in The Odyssey and The Penelopiad. In The Odyssey, the concept of “justice” is rather obscure; humans do not appear to have much agency and the concept of “fate” and often biased discretion […] Continue reading →
The Odyssey
In reading The Odyssey, I admittedly did not spend as much time as I probably should have analyzing the themes, noting the recurring motifs, and keeping track of the symbols for later review. I often found myself so utterly enthralled … Continue reading →
Nostalgia
Odysseus was longing to return home to his wife, Penelope. Through nymphs, Calypso, Helios, the Sirens, and a small army of suitors and many others stand between him and his wife. Nothing defines the Odysseus more than his ingenuity as well as his eloquence with words, but when enraged, Odysseus can show that at times […]
Odysseus the Overrated
In the lecture today, I really enjoyed hearing about the feminist view of the Odyssey, and thought it brought an interesting new perspective to a novel I’ve been dragging my feet through since Grade 11. I wanted to add on to that by discussing the double standard in terms of adultery. Even though I don’t know anything about the philosophies of feminism or feminist literary criticism, I was frustrated every time the subject of adultery was raised. Penelope, with her husband gone, is stuck in her house with twenty men…read more
Homer the Bard and Odysseus the Husband
The Odyssey is a beautiful epic written by Homer a long time ago, but it never stops being the subject of modern-day remaking and remixing. The epic details the journey of a man’s homecoming, starting out with Odysseus’ son Telemachus. The first four books of the epic focuse on Telemachus’ journey in search for his […]
The Odyssey blog post
Something about the Odyssey that immediately struck me was the diverse, sophisticated diction of the text. Despite being thousands of years old and having been translated multiple times, I found the Odyssey to be very understandable.The broad vocabulary Homer seems to use makes his story impressively precise and convincing. The rhythm of its poetic […]
Odysseus Would Be Horrible to Take on Roadtrips
So, the Odyssey. It was really interesting reading this, especially right after Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling is very analytical, and I found it very hard to read. I kept on having to stop and make notes to make sure I actually understood what Kierkegaard was saying. With the Odyssey, I had to make myself stop […]
The Odyssey
Over the course of reading The Odyssey I noticed a couple of interesting things the foremost being the prominent role of women within the story. Women within the poem held a great deal of power, often surpassing the power held by the male characters. Athena stands as the most active female figure in the poem, being […]
Birds in the Odyssey
While reading the Odyssey, one of the key things I noticed was the use of birds as a means to foreshadow the outcome of the final conflict between Odysseus and Penelope’s suitors. As the epic begins, two eagles are seen flying through the sky until they begin to attack one another and then eventually tear […]