6/13/2023 0 Comments Odyssey definitionShe is eventually betrayed by one of the maids in the house, and forced by the suitors to complete it, although the ruse does last for three years. The suitors agree to this, but little do they know that she weaves the shroud by day, and un-weaves it by night. She tries to avoid re-marriage and delays the event by a clever ruse: she agrees to marry a suitor only after she has finished weaving a death shroud for Odysseus’s father Laertes. Just as Odysseus is too clever for the Trojans - and the suitors - so his wife Penelope is a model of cleverness and circumspection. One might say that Achilles wins his Trojan war by killing Hector, with Athena’s support, but it is Odysseus who is the real destroyer of the city by virtue of a new and different kind of heroism. Achilles never sees the fall of Troy because he dies beforehand (unless one watches the 2004 film Troy). This kind of heroism is very different from Achilles in the Iliad, whose renown is built on his use of the spear and shield in single combat in the bright light of day. His heroism is characterised by these two elements – his cunning intelligence, and his courage in the darkness of confined spaces. He is a kind of “breaker of sieges” in early Greek epic. His role in breaking the siege at Troy is a precursor to breaking the stalemate in his own house. Odysseus can rightly claim to be the conqueror of Troy based on his creative thinking in dreaming up the idea of the horse in the first place, not to mention his courage in going into its belly with the other men. His reaction to the bard prompts his host, the king Alcinous, to ask him who he is and what is his story? And so well does Demodocus sing the story of the horse that tears run down Odysseus’s cheeks and he groans heavily. Odysseus is more than keen to hear about his own heroic exploits. On the last leg of his return he is entertained by the Phaeacians on the island of Scheria (perhaps modern Corfu), where Odysseus, his identity unknown to his hosts, rather cheekily asks the local bard Demodocus to sing the story of the wooden horse, which Odysseus had used to hide the Greek soldiers and surprise the city of Troy. It is very important in the Odyssey that the hero’s renown as the destroyer of Troy has quickly entered into the oral tradition of the world through which he travels. There is a strong element of the trickster figure about Homer’s Odysseus. All of Odysseus’s men are eventually killed, and he alone survives his return home, mostly because of his versatility and cleverness. Polyphemus is blinded but survives the attack and curses the voyage home of the Ithacans. He and his men enter into the cave of the Cyclops, get him drunk on some seriously potent wine, and then stick a large burning stake into his eye. View the full definition in the Macmillan Dictionary.The critical episode on the way home is Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus, a Cyclops and son of Poseidon (told in Book 9). “The trip was to be an odyssey in the fullest sense of the word, an epic journey that would change everything.”Īdventure, expedition, quest, progression At the same time, I shared a dark suspicion that the life we were leading was a lost cause, that we were all actors, kidding ourselves along on a senseless odyssey.” I was never idle long enough to do much thinking, but I felt somehow that some of us were making real progress, that we had taken an honest road, and that the best of us would inevitably make it over the top. After a decade spent wandering on his odyssey, and presumed long dead, he arrives home to Ithaca, and is reunited with his wife Penelope and his son, Telemachus. Along the way he encounters many strange lands, including those of the Cyclops, the Sirens and the Lotus-eaters. Describing the adventures of Odysseus, the story takes place over ten years, as he travels back home following the Trojan war and final fall of Troy. The manuscript was eventually translated into English by George Chapman in 1615. Also, an odyssey is a metaphorical voyage of self-discovery, like a spiritual awakening, which is marked by changes of heart and opinion.Īscribed to the Greek poet, Homer, The Odyssey is thought to have been written in the 8th century BC. An extended trip around a foreign country, where plenty of adventurous and eventful things happen, is an odyssey. The noun odyssey denotes an important intellectual or physical journey, one which is filled with excitement and different experiences.
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