Odyssey scholar quotes

Jasper Griffin - speeches

“The speeches use an importantly different style and vocabulary from the narrative”

Seth Schein - gender & similes

“Similes that reverse normal male and female roles and experiences are of special thematic importance in a poem that seems to value others’ viewpoints”

Peter Jones - Odysseus’ character

“There have been 3 common responses to the hero of the Odyssey. First he is the loyal hero-husband… Second he is the eternal wanderer… Third he is an anti-hero”

Barbara Graziosi - power

“The Odyssey… also offers a more disenchanted, epic exploration of power and its consequences”

Ahuvia Kahane - nostos

“The actions of the Odyssey are motivated by the idea of a return to the ‘inner space’… Reassertion of control in the palace… is a crucial aspect of social order… Yet more prominent… is, of course, Odysseus’ reunion with Penelope, a union of male and female, which combines elements of identity, sexuality, economic well-being, and social functions”

Edith Hall - Odysseus/exploration/societies

“When Odysseus describes the Cyclops’ island, he speaks with the discerning eye of the colonist. Odysseus the mythical explorer is related to the real-life Greeks who in the archaic age sailed into unknown waters”

Barbara Graziosi - Odysseus’ character

“By turns a comic character, a tragic hero, a stoic sage, and a villain, Odysseus could never, and cannot yet, be pinned down”

Gregory Nagy - nostos

Odysseus’ return to Ithaca is a metaphor about immortalisation and a return to “light and life”

Gregory Nagy - nostos

“The Odyssey is not only a nostos: it is a nostos to end all other nostoi.”

Gregory Nagy - Athena

Athena “mentally connects” Telemachus to his father

Sheila Murnaghan - Athena

The Odyssey is “governed by Athene’s unprecedentedly overt and continuous intervention on her favourite’s behalf”

Morrisson - Odysseus

“He clearly contemplates his options and makes independent decisions”

Jones - Odysseus’ metis

“The Polyphemus episode is Odysseus’ greatest achievement, partly because it shows off his key quality of metis”

Finley - Penelope’s importance

“Penelope is the key to the unity of the poem”

Van Northwick - Nausicaa vs Penelope

“Nausicaa must be seen as a paradigm or Penelope”

Edith Hall - Xenia

“Every book of the Odyssey, someone is either a model for xenia or an anti-model”

Edith Hall - Xenia + Polyphemus

“The Cyclops episode is the worst possible xenia because they are both breaking all the laws of it”

Emily Hauser - nostos + Odysseus’ actions

“All Odysseus’ actions are driven by that desire for nostos”

Richard Jenkyns - class/society

“It remains an aristocratic poem, but more inclusive”

Griffin - Odysseus + control

He is “forced to learn the power of self-control”

Clayton - Odysseus: physical vs cunning

He must “compensate” for lack of physical impressiveness “by means of verbal skills”