The Epic

1. The Epic

2. Have you ever said that a problem was of epic proportions? What are epics and what do we mean when we describe something as having epic proportions? An epic is a long narrative poem about the deeds of a hero. This epic hero often portrays the goals and values of the society. Typically, epics are based in part on historical fact, blending legend and truth. Gods and goddesses often play a part in epics, guiding the hero or thwarting his actions.

3. To help storytellers to remember these lengthy pieces, the tales were told over many days or were composed in poetic lines and were often recited to the accompaniment of stringed instruments.

4. Two of the greatest epics are the Iliad and The Odyssey. Both arose from an oral tradition. They were passed down through word of mouth by wandering Greek minstrels until they were put into their final form, probably around 800 B.C. and possibly by the semi-legendary poet named Homer.

5. Homer is thought to have been born sometime between 700 B.C. and 1000 B.C., possibly in western Asia Minor (modern day Turkey). According to tradition, he was blind. He did not write his two great epics, the Iliad and The Odyssey, as a modern novelist writes a novel. Rather, he composed them orally by assembling a number of earlier and shorter narrative songs. He probably traveled around the Greek-speaking world reciting them on many occasions. In later centuries the two epics were the basis of Greek and Roman education. In fact, Alexander the Great credited Homer’s Iliad as the source of his ideas about valor and nobility.

6. Concepts Found in The Odyssey • Loyalty, devotion, and fortitude • Greek ideal of a strong body and a strong mind • The wandering hero • The triumph of good over evil • Obedience to the laws of the gods

7. The Odyssey

8. Odysseus (Ulysses) was called upon in Ithaca, where Odysseus was king, to fight in the Trojan War on the side of the Greeks. He became a commander in the Greek forces. Noted for his cleverness --- it was Odysseus who suggested the stratagem of the Trojan Horse --- the Ithacan king served ably in the ten-year conflict with Troy. The goddess Athena favored Odysseus but became angry with all the Greeks, including Odysseus, even in their splendid victory over the Trojans because of the ill-treatment they had accorded the Trojan princess Cassandra at the end of the war. As a result, all the victors had difficulties returning to their homes in Greece.

9. None, however, encountered greater obstacles than Odysseus, because Odysseus not only offended Athena, but he also offended the god Poseidon. For a decade he and his men wandered from place to place and had many adventures: they were turned into swine (pigs) by the sorceress Circe; they almost succumbed to the temptations of the land of the Lotus-Eaters and the treacherous sirens; they barely survived the passage between the Scylla and the Charybdis, as well as their encounter with the fearsome one-eyed giant Polyphemus. Nevertheless, the wily Odysseus managed to survive, but the story is not over yet…