The Odyssey Review
Use this packet to guide your understanding of the major concepts in the Odyssey. Also, make sure you can use context clues and decoding strategies (summarizing, restating...) to make sense of extremely detailed epic poetry! Need help? Email or tweet me! I’ll be at school at 7:30 tomorrow morning to go over this.
I. Plot sequence, Episodes, and climax: (use your study guide for Part I and Part II to make sure you understand and can provide examples, and can explain the significance for each of these)
Complete the timeline of events in the Odyssey.
II. Characters: Make a list of characters in the Odyssey
Who are some of the archetypal characters in the Odyssey? How do they compare/contrast to their modern day archetypal equal?
III. Themes in the Odyssey(may be more than one)
What are some of the common themes in the Odyssey?
IV. Characteristics of an Epic and Epic Hero
What characteristics of an epic hero does Odysseus posses?
How does he demonstrate each of these throughout his journey?
V. Homeric Simile: an extended/detailed comparison of two actions or objects
Explain what is being compared in the following quotes:
1. “Think of a catch that fishermen haul into a half moon bay in a fine-meshed net from the whitecaps of the sea; how all are poured out on the sand, in throes for the salt sea, twitching their cold lives away in Helios’ fiery air; so lay the suitors heaped on one another.”
2. “Now from his breast into his eyes the ache of longing mounted, and he wept at last, his dear wife, clear and faithful, in his arms, longed for as the sunwarmed earth is longed for by a swimmer spent in rough water where his ship went down under Poseidon’s blows, gale winds and tons of sea.”
- Epithet: word or phrase used to characterize someone or something.
“…the man skilled in all ways of contending”
“I am Laertes’ son, Odysseus.”
Write an epithet to characterize yourself.
VII. Dramatic Irony: when the audience knows something the characters do not know
Describe an example of dramatic irony in the Odyssey.
VIII. Anecdote: How does each episode in the Odyssey represent an underlining theme? What is the connection between an anecdote and the themes in each episode?
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