Humanities 121
Short Essay 2: The Odyssey
Compose a short essay (2-3 double spaced pages) in response to one of the prompts below.
1. Harold Bloom, an eminent 20th Century literary scholar, wrote,
“Homer’s Odysseus is a very dangerous figure, whom we admire and respect but do not love. He is a great survivor, the one man who will stay afloat when all his shipmates drown. You would not want to be in one boat with him then, but there is no one you would rather read or hear about, because survival is the best of all stories. Stories exist to defer death, and Odysseus is the grand evader of mortality.”
When you reach the end of the tale, what do you think of Odysseus? He was a paradigm of excellence for the Greeks. Is he for you? Do you admire him? Respect him? Love him? Do you agree with Bloom’s assessment? Why or why not? Use specific, cited examples from the Odyssey to support your argument.
2. Xenia, or the Greek concept of hospitality, plays a key role in the culture of the ancient Greeks and in the Odyssey. What is the significance of hospitality in Homer’s epic? What are the demands of this social value on host and guest? Discuss the notion of xenia in the Odyssey, analyzing notable examples and explaining the function of this concept in the epic and in Greek culture.
3. Areté, or the Greek concept of mental and physical excellence in the crucial moment, is arguably Odysseus’s foremost virtue. Discuss the notion of areté in the Odyssey, analyzing notable examples and explaining the function of this concept in the epic and in Greek culture.
4. Analyze gender roles as they are constructed in the Odyssey. Identify male and female characters prototypical of various role identities for men and women in Homer’s work, or consider characters who challenge ideas about gender/gender roles in the epic. As a starting point, you might consider Odysseus and Penelope as ideal embodiments of their social roles (father, husband, warrior, king, host, wife, mother, queen, etc.) or Calypso’s critique of the sexual double standards of the Olympians in Book 5.
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