Para-Narratives in the Odyssey

Para-Narratives in the Odyssey PDF Author: Maureen Alden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192524283
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
Readers coming to the Odyssey for the first time are often dazzled and bewildered by the wealth of material it contains which is seemingly unrelated to the central story: the main plot of Odysseus' return to Ithaca is complicated by myriad secondary narratives related by the poet and his characters, including Odysseus' own fantastic tales of Lotus Eaters, Sirens, and cannibal giants. Although these 'para-narratives' are a source of pleasure and entertainment in their own right, each also has a special relevance to its immediate context, elucidating Odysseus' predicament and also subtly influencing and guiding the audience's reception of the main story. By exploring variations on the basic story-shape, drawing on familiar tales, anecdotes, and mythology, or inserting analogous situations, they create illuminating parallels to the main narrative and prompt specific responses in readers or listeners. This is the case even when details are suppressed or altered, as the audience may still experience the reverberations of the better-known version of the tradition, and it also applies to the characters themselves, who are often provided with a model of action for imitation or avoidance in their immediate contexts.

Para-Narratives in the Odyssey

Para-Narratives in the Odyssey PDF Author: Maureen Alden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192524283
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 445

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Book Description
Readers coming to the Odyssey for the first time are often dazzled and bewildered by the wealth of material it contains which is seemingly unrelated to the central story: the main plot of Odysseus' return to Ithaca is complicated by myriad secondary narratives related by the poet and his characters, including Odysseus' own fantastic tales of Lotus Eaters, Sirens, and cannibal giants. Although these 'para-narratives' are a source of pleasure and entertainment in their own right, each also has a special relevance to its immediate context, elucidating Odysseus' predicament and also subtly influencing and guiding the audience's reception of the main story. By exploring variations on the basic story-shape, drawing on familiar tales, anecdotes, and mythology, or inserting analogous situations, they create illuminating parallels to the main narrative and prompt specific responses in readers or listeners. This is the case even when details are suppressed or altered, as the audience may still experience the reverberations of the better-known version of the tradition, and it also applies to the characters themselves, who are often provided with a model of action for imitation or avoidance in their immediate contexts.

Para-Narratives in the Odyssey

Para-Narratives in the Odyssey PDF Author: Maureen Alden
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192524275
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 437

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Book Description
Readers coming to the Odyssey for the first time are often dazzled and bewildered by the wealth of material it contains which is seemingly unrelated to the central story: the main plot of Odysseus' return to Ithaca is complicated by myriad secondary narratives related by the poet and his characters, including Odysseus' own fantastic tales of Lotus Eaters, Sirens, and cannibal giants. Although these 'para-narratives' are a source of pleasure and entertainment in their own right, each also has a special relevance to its immediate context, elucidating Odysseus' predicament and also subtly influencing and guiding the audience's reception of the main story. By exploring variations on the basic story-shape, drawing on familiar tales, anecdotes, and mythology, or inserting analogous situations, they create illuminating parallels to the main narrative and prompt specific responses in readers or listeners. This is the case even when details are suppressed or altered, as the audience may still experience the reverberations of the better-known version of the tradition, and it also applies to the characters themselves, who are often provided with a model of action for imitation or avoidance in their immediate contexts.

Homer Beside Himself

Homer Beside Himself PDF Author: Maureen Alden
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191590037
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 401

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Book Description
Students reading the Iliad for the first time are often bewildered by the sheer volume of information on apparently unrelated subjects contained in it. The central narrative seems to unfold very slowly, and to be complicated by long speeches containing stories which might be interesting in themselves, but which seem to have no relevance to anything else. In this book Dr Alden offers advice on how to read the Iliad through the relationship of major paradigms to the events of the main narrative. The first section offers the first full-length study in English of the paradigmatic functions of secondary narratives and minor-key episodes in the Iliad. None of these are irrelevant or merely ornamental: rather each is carefully selected and altered if necessary, to reflect on significant episodes of the main narrative and act as guides to its interpretation. The second section offers a general reading of the Iliad arising out of Phoenix's advice to Achilles in Book 9. The allegory of the Prayers illustrates the dire consequences of rejecting prayers, and the paradigm of Meleager presents us with an instance of an angry hero to whom prayers and entreaties are addressed, whilst the primary narrative confines this motif of prayers and entreaties in ascending scale of affection to Achilles and Hector and contrasts their responses. Both heroes suffer terribly for their rejection of entreaties.

Travel and Home in Homer's Odyssey and Contemporary Literature

Travel and Home in Homer's Odyssey and Contemporary Literature PDF Author: Carol Dougherty
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192543644
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 175

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Book Description
Travel and Home in Homer's Odyssey and Contemporary Literature brings Homer's Odyssey together with contemporary literary texts ranging from Rebecca West's The Return of the Soldier to Marilynne Robinson's Housekeeping and Cormac McCarthy's The Road to produce new readings that reframe, reorient, and ultimately revise aspects of Homer's iconic story of travel and home. While some novels share with the Odyssey a celebration of the creative process of improvisation to rethink the relationship between home and travel, others draw upon nostalgia - our complicated longing for home - to unsettle the inevitability of return. Rather than offering an explicit retelling of Homer's poem, each of these novels prompts us to revisit the relationship between travel and home that Odysseus and Penelope embody to ask new questions of that well-read text. Does travel reinforce or destabilize our notion of home? Are mobility and domesticity irrevocably gendered, or can we imagine a world in which Penelope travels and Odysseus stays home? Just as Odysseus continually reinvents his own identity with each new encounter, both abroad and at home, so too we, as readers, participate in an improvisatory interpretive experiment of our own. This volume sets out a new model for reading ancient and contemporary texts together - one that challenges the conventional chronological assumptions inherent in many works of classical reception. No longer a stable text to which we as readers return time and again to find it the same, the Odyssey, together with the novels with which it engages, changes and adapts with each new literary encounter.

Para-narratives in the Odyssey

Para-narratives in the Odyssey PDF Author: Maureen Joan Alden
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780191746963
Category : LITERARY CRITICISM
Languages : en
Pages : 424

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Book Description
'Para-Narratives in the Odyssey' is a full-length study in English of the function and significance of secondary 'para-narratives' in the poem and their relationship to its main story. Entertaining in their own right, they create illuminating parallels to their immediate context and enhance our understanding of the central narrative

The Raft of Odysseus

The Raft of Odysseus PDF Author: Carol Dougherty
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 0195130367
Category : Classical geography in literature
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
The Raft of Odysseus looks at the fascinating intersection of traditional myth with an enthnographically-viewed Homeric world. Carol Dougherty argues that the resourcefulness of Odysseus as an adventurer on perilous seas served as an example to Homer's society which also had to adjust in inventive ways to turbulent conditions. The fantastic adventures of Odysseus act as a prism for the experiences of Homer's own listeners--traders, seafarers, storytellers, soldiers--and give us a glimpse into their own world of hopes and fears, 500 years after the Iliadic events were supposed to have happened.

The Cambridge Guide to Homer

The Cambridge Guide to Homer PDF Author: Corinne Ondine Pache
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108663621
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 974

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Book Description
From its ancient incarnation as a song to recent translations in modern languages, Homeric epic remains an abiding source of inspiration for both scholars and artists that transcends temporal and linguistic boundaries. The Cambridge Guide to Homer examines the influence and meaning of Homeric poetry from its earliest form as ancient Greek song to its current status in world literature, presenting the information in a synthetic manner that allows the reader to gain an understanding of the different strands of Homeric studies. The volume is structured around three main themes: Homeric Song and Text; the Homeric World, and Homer in the World. Each section starts with a series of 'macropedia' essays arranged thematically that are accompanied by shorter complementary 'micropedia' articles. The Cambridge Guide to Homer thus traces the many routes taken by Homeric epic in the ancient world and its continuing relevance in different periods and cultures.

The Odyssey

The Odyssey PDF Author: Homer
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0191646504
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
'Tell me, Muse, of the man of many turns, who was driven far and wide after he had sacked the sacred city of Troy' Twenty years after setting out to fight in the Trojan War, Odysseus is yet to return home to Ithaca. His household is in disarray: a horde of over 100 disorderly and arrogant suitors are vying to claim Odysseus' wife Penelope, and his young son Telemachus is powerless to stop them. Meanwhile, Odysseus is driven beyond the limits of the known world, encountering countless divine and earthly challenges. But Odysseus is 'of many wiles' and his cunning and bravery eventually lead him home, to reclaim both his family and his kingdom. The Odyssey rivals the Iliad as the greatest poem of Western culture and is perhaps the most influential text of classical literature. This elegant and compelling new translation is accompanied by a full introduction and notes that guide the reader in understanding the poem and the many different contexts in which it was performed and read.

A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey

A Narratological Commentary on the Odyssey PDF Author: Irene J. F. de Jong
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521464789
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 652

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Book Description
Comprehensive commentaries on the Homeric texts abound, but this commentary concentrates on one major aspect of the Odyssey--its narrative art. The role of narrator and narratees, methods of characterization and scenery description, and the development of the plot are discussed. The study aims to enhance our understanding of this masterpiece of European literature. All Greek references are translated and technical terms are explained in a glossary. It is directed at students and scholars of Greek literature and comparative literature.

The Gaze of Homer

The Gaze of Homer PDF Author: Soteroula Constantinidou
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789603544999
Category : Greek language
Languages : en
Pages : 180

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Book Description
"The present study is an overall investigation of the aspects and functions of light as well as of visual perceptions and the dependence of certain narratives upon notions of light and brightness, of the symbolism and the experience of light in the Homeric world and especially in the Iliad."--P. 2.