Was the Odyssey written by a woman?
- Created by: Katherine
- Created on: 04-02-21 00:50
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- Samuel Butler Authoress of the Odyssey
- Who was Homer?
- Traditional interpretation - old, blind poet from Chios - always depicted as bearded in art (shows wisdom)
- Iliad and the Odyssey both definitely oral tradition
- analysist interpretation
- too many inconsistencies
- how can Eurycleia recognise Odysseus if he is disguised?
- however is dealing with myth handed down - compare to Aeschylus' Electra
- Odysseus eats dinner three times within one day
- ages are highly inconsistent esp Neoptolemus (born just before the war yet already an adult? son of Achilles but only about a decade younger than him?)
- Question of Penelope - book 19 & 23 are inconsistent
- how can Eurycleia recognise Odysseus if he is disguised?
- too many inconsistencies
- unitarian interpretation
- all masterpieces are written by single individuals
- consistent characterisation and epithets
- The argument in favour
- The women have power over the men - Penelope, Arete, Nausicaa, Helen, Eurycleia, Circe, Calypso
- Men are caricatured - Polyphemus, Telemachus, Menelaus, the Suitors, Poseidon
- In literature most powerful women are also evil (Medea, Clytemnestra, Lady Macbeth); most good women are meek and submissive (endless examples - Lavinia, Polyxena, Dickens' women (e.g. Lucie from A Tale of Two Cities)
- Female literature - Elizabeth Bennet, Jo March - breaks that trend
- Tess of the D'Urbevilles?
- Female literature - Elizabeth Bennet, Jo March - breaks that trend
- Difference from the Iliad
- Counter-argument
- Treatment of infidelity - very much male gaze
- Odysseus is not caricatured
- Melantho, hanging of the maids as punishment for being ***** (Rieu does use this word) and Penelope's failure to intervene
- Iliad is a story of war - Odyssey a story of weird foreign islands and how strange non-Greeks are
- Compare to Herodotus and his depiction of Persian women - powerful women presented as exotic, not a good thing
- part when Circe begs for mercy and asks Odysseus to sleep with her; part when Penelope begs for mercy
- Who was Homer?
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