What do I like and dislike about the Odyssey? (Catherine Project 11)

 Catherine Project, Spring 2024, Homer -- Od. 21-24

For my final reflection I hope you’ll indulge this pretty narcissistic question that may very well say more about me than it does about the text we’re reading together. Plus, I’ve already voiced many of these thoughts in our earlier conversations. But to put them down in one place, some dislikes:

• The Odyssey divides up the human world into good guys and bad guys (the divine world is more complicated, I think, like Calypso, Circe, and Athena), and many of the most powerful emotional scenes arise from good things happening to the good guys and bad things happening to the bad guys: like the Telemachus & Odysseus reunion (15), or the slaughter of the suitors (22). I especially dislike the righteous anger and joy I feel over the death of the suitors (the “yeah die die kill kill” inside of me). Feels like the Odyssey is appealing to a particularly nasty and brutish part of me that delights in anger and revenge. The Iliad’s most powerful scenes by contrast come from people reaching across gaps to forge relationships (Hector & Andromache, Achilles & Priam, basically Achilles & everyone [Thetis, Patroclus, the embassy]), and arguably one point of the Iliad is that rage is a bad thing that kills you and your friends.
• It’s hard for me to see what we can learn from the Odyssey. The basic ethical framework around hospitality that drives much of the poem is very much of its time and place (nobody today is expected to open up their house to anybody who walks by), and the Odyssey often ducks the hard questions of right and wrong by punting and saying it’s whatever the god wants (24.443-9 on the slaughter of the suitors – must be ok because a god wanted it; cf. 23.63, 17.484). Plus, how can we possibly imitate Odysseus? Odysseus has an innate craftiness (unlearnable), and the assistance of Athena (can’t get that), including reversing old age and helping to fight.
• I find the examples of craftiness not very clever (“nobody,” Penelope’s weaving trick), and in general the theme of deception doesn’t do that much for me. I don’t enjoy the games of ‘does so and so recognize Odysseus yet’.
• I find the characters to be less interesting and less richly drawn than the Iliad, especially Odysseus’ crewmen and the suitors, but even Odysseus and Penelope I find a little flat.

So what do I like?

• I think in general 1-12 are significantly better than 13-24. I like the backward glimpses at the Trojan War, Telemachus’ youth and maturation, Odysseus’ tact and diplomacy with Nausicaa and the Phaeacians, and in general the adventures are fun (especially Circe & the Underworld).
• I like the surprisingly moving and tender death of Argos, where this poor neglected dog is granted one last glance of its master before its death. A mix of pain and joy.
• I think Odysseus’ relationships with women (Nausicaa, Eurycleia, Penelope) and especially female goddesses (Athena, Calypso, Circe) are rich and complex: it feels to me like Odysseus can only be honest and forthright in front of female goddesses whom he respects but mistrusts, especially with Calypso in 5 and Athena in 13. By contrast, after he reveals himself to Telemachus their relationship is mostly him giving orders to T and telling him to stop asking questions.

Some key passages for other questions

• Did Odysseus gain anything from his long absence from Ithaca? Or was fighting at Troy and his long trip home just a big waste of time?
• 23.210 – Penelope laments their wasted youth
• 23.218-9 – Od. did not bring home a foreign bride
• 23.341 – Od tells P about the gold and clothing from the Phaeacians
• 23.355 – Odysseus must now restore his flocks by raiding and gifts
• 24.116 – Ag and Men barely persuaded Od to go to Troy in the first place
• but – Odysseus’ fame (9.20); Penelope’s fame (24.196-8); Telemachus’ fame (1.95)
• Is 23.296 a better ending place for the Odyssey?
• 23.139 – Od already intends to go out to estate (which he does in 24), though no mention of Laertes here
• 23.296 – ending with going to bed, cf. end of Il. 1
• two long, weird summaries of the Odyssey in this section: 23.310f (Od’s adventures) and 24.148f (Od’s homecoming)
• 24.148f – do we need this third telling of Penelope’s weaving trick? (cf. 2 and 19)
• 24.548 – seems like a bad final line, that Athena looked like Mentor. It’s no “And so they buried Hector breaker of horses.”
• ending at 296 puts emphasis on Odysseus’ reunion with P; ending in 24 puts emphasis on Odysseus’ reunion with father and son.
• Does the Odyssey distinguish between justice and vengeance?
• 22.64 – Odysseus ‘pays back’ (apotisai) the oversteps (hyperbasias) of the suitors
• 22.437 – seems uncool to make the women clean up and then kill them, especially since Odysseus says the suitors made the women sleep with them by force (22.37)
• 22.474-6 – Odysseus chops off Melanthius’ extremities, including genitals, hands and feet, out of anger
• 24.435 – but Eupeithes also seeks vengeance for the death of the suitors, which the epic seems to have some sympathy for but not too much (cf. Halitherses’ speech)