The
Odyssey is a work of Western literature that almost everyone knows something
about but few have actually read. Odysseus' escape from the Cyclops, his
surviving the deadly call of the Sirens and Penelope's tricking of her suitors
have become part of our common culture. The Odyssey is a foundational work.
Yet, what does it have to say to the modern reader? In your odyssey through The
Odyssey, you will study the complexity of its characters, their self-awareness
and their joy in blurring the lines of truth and fiction. Powerful men, women
and gods weave their tales and cloth, spin webs of identity and mystery and
re-knit the fabric of their world.
Students will receive a copy of the poem and some
hand-outs and plot synopses. It is not expected that anyone has read the whole
poem-or even parts of it-in advance. We'll read selected passages aloud
together, in keeping with the expectation that the poem would be recited, not
read silently, and I'll do my best to fill in the gaps. What follows is a basic
(and hopefully intriguing) outline of our time together, subject to adjustment
in real-time.
Day 1:
Introduction: The World of Odysseus and the Odyssey
Books
1-4: A Fatherless boy, an unravelled world and the search for a missing story
Day 2:
Books 5-8: We find the hero but he must find himself
Books
9-10: Telling his own tales - Adventures in Wonderland
Day 3:
Books 11-13: To Death and back and finally home alone but where and what is
home?
Books
14-16 A Kingly swineherd and lying tales truer than truth
Day 4:
Books 17-18: The beggar at the palace gate - Nobody for sure this time
Books
19-20: Wooing your wife, dreams and questions, recognition deflected; plans
made
Day 5:
Books 21-14: Becoming Odysseus: The Contest of the Bow, the secret of the
Marriage Bed, a day of human and divine reckoning, reweaving the fabric of Ithaca
Last
thoughts: Why was Homer such a bad novelist? A problematic ending? No ending?
The odysseys continue.
Susan Brockman
About Susan
With a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature, Susan has taught at
the City University ofNew York and at Stuyvesant High School for 35 years. She
likes to say that she's taught "many things to many people"-but
mostly Classical Literature in translation, Latin and Greek, and Linguistics.
She delights in helping students find how completely alive the Classical world
is today. No need to make it relevant; it requires only some keys to the
workings of ancient minds-and being human. She hopes to enlighten and
entertain, and welcomes moments of awe whenever she and her students can find
them.
