Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Arts and Humanities Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Classics

Homer

Institution
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 1 - 30 of 98

Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities

“You Came Back To Me”: A Literary Analysis Exploring Themes Of Displacement And Homecoming In Toni Morrison’S Beloved And Homer’S Odyssey, Amya Franklin May 2024

“You Came Back To Me”: A Literary Analysis Exploring Themes Of Displacement And Homecoming In Toni Morrison’S Beloved And Homer’S Odyssey, Amya Franklin

Honors Theses

This thesis is a literary analysis of Toni Morrison’s Beloved and Homer’s Odyssey, using the themes of Beloved to inform the reading and thematic approach to the Odyssey. This work is a part of the larger conversation of how Black literary art adds to classical literature and the literary canon as a whole. This analysis is broken up into two major themes: homecoming and displacement. The creative and literary impact of Beloved redefines and highlights these themes within the Odyssey. This work highlights the conversation and interplay between Beloved and the Odyssey while also highlighting Beloved’s propensity …


The Struggle Over Patroclus’S Body And The Stretching Of Leather, Alison Maloney Jul 2023

The Struggle Over Patroclus’S Body And The Stretching Of Leather, Alison Maloney

Parnassus: Classical Journal

No abstract provided.


Life, Death, And Recycling In The Homeric Simile, Briana Oser Jul 2023

Life, Death, And Recycling In The Homeric Simile, Briana Oser

Parnassus: Classical Journal

No abstract provided.


The Funeral Of Patroclus, Carl Quist Jul 2023

The Funeral Of Patroclus, Carl Quist

Parnassus: Classical Journal

No abstract provided.


Feminist Retellings Of Homer's The Odyssey, 2005-2022, Brenna R. Bretzinger May 2023

Feminist Retellings Of Homer's The Odyssey, 2005-2022, Brenna R. Bretzinger

Honors Capstones

Over the past two decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of feminist retellings of Greek mythology. These retellings serve to give voice to the marginalized female characters from ancient stories whose characterizations were deprioritized over their male counterparts. Furthermore, these stories connect the plights of ancient women with modern feminists to champion issues that women continue facing today. This study focuses on retellings of Homer’s The Odyssey, but these ideas and arguments are still largely applicable to other retellings of Greek mythology. Along with discussing The Odyssey, this project also analyzes three feminist retellings: …


Heroic (Im)Maturity: Domestic Rupture And The Myth Of Telemachus' Coming Of Age, Mary Whitney May 2023

Heroic (Im)Maturity: Domestic Rupture And The Myth Of Telemachus' Coming Of Age, Mary Whitney

College Honors Program

As one of the most enduring narratives discussed in the field of Classics, extensive research has been written about Homer’s Odyssey. The universal and flexible maxims of the desire for homecoming (νόστος) make the events of this epic so compelling. One central aspect of Odysseus’ νόστος is the return of his son Telemachus to a specific role as the obedient prince. This implies that before the resolution of Odysseus’ νόστος, there exists the rupture of the domestic sphere that allows for freedom and chaos, both of which are removed and checked when Odysseus returns to Ithaca. For as long …


Feminist Retellings Of Homer's The Odyssey, 2005-2022, Brenna R. Bretzinger Jan 2023

Feminist Retellings Of Homer's The Odyssey, 2005-2022, Brenna R. Bretzinger

CURE Proceedings

Over the past two decades, there has been a significant increase in the number of feminist retellings of Greek mythology. These retellings serve to give voice to the marginalized female characters from ancient stories whose characterizations were deprioritized over their male counterparts. Furthermore, these stories connect the plights of ancient women with modern feminists to champion issues that women continue facing today. This study focuses on retellings of Homer’s The Odyssey, but these ideas and arguments are still largely applicable to other retellings of Greek mythology. Along with discussing The Odyssey, this project also analyzes three feminist retellings: …


Sleep, Bread, And Death: Evolving Conceptions Of Mortality From The Epic Of Gilgamesh And Homer To Genesis, John, And Paul, Joshua Daniel Desetta Jan 2023

Sleep, Bread, And Death: Evolving Conceptions Of Mortality From The Epic Of Gilgamesh And Homer To Genesis, John, And Paul, Joshua Daniel Desetta

Senior Projects Spring 2023

In this project, I explore the symbolic web that connects eating, sleeping, reproduction, and mortality—a nexus of associations that runs through the Epic of Gilgamesh, Homer, Genesis, and the writings of John and Paul. First, I aim to demonstrate that these texts use a shared symbolic language of bread and sleep, eating and sleeping, in their discussions of mortality and to reveal the texts’ implicit definitions of mortality and godhood. Second, I aim to demonstrate the tension between the Mesopotamian and Greek texts’ conclusions that man cannot achieve immortality and the notion presented in the biblical texts, particularly the …


Andromache, Rachel Hungerford Jan 2022

Andromache, Rachel Hungerford

Honors Projects and Presentations: Undergraduate

This project is a fictional adaptation of The Iliad, told from the third-person perspective of Andromache, the wife of Trojan commander Hector. Andromache attempts to present a consistent Trojan female voice in its telling, as well as a picture of a committed marriage. It seeks to capture the complicated humanity of individual characters rather than the archetypal objectivity of Homer’s poem. And, most importantly, it tries to provide moments of goodness, fidelity, and hope in the face of immorality, unfaithfulness, and despair.


Ἔπος: A Musical Concept Album Adaptation Of Homer’S Iliad, Blaike Cheramie Jan 2022

Ἔπος: A Musical Concept Album Adaptation Of Homer’S Iliad, Blaike Cheramie

Scripps Senior Theses

This thesis project is a musical concept album adaptation of Homer’s classical epic the Iliad. Inspired by musicals like Hadestown, Les Miserables, and Hamilton as well as movies like O Brother Where Art Thou and musicians like Bob Dylan, this album seeks to enter the genre of Classical Reception Studies. The album consists of seven tracks all referencing moments within the poem, written from the perspective of the characters to inspire empathy within the audience. The content of this thesis includes detailed chord charts and audio demos of each song, as well as analyses of the lyrical, musical, and thematic …


Identities Of Armor: The Function Of Armor In Homer's Iliad, Eli Rosenthal Jan 2022

Identities Of Armor: The Function Of Armor In Homer's Iliad, Eli Rosenthal

Senior Projects Spring 2022

Senior Project submitted to The Division of Languages and Literature of Bard College.


Fan Fiction And The Trojan War: Contemporary Euripidean Perspective On The Treatment Of Enslaved Women In The Silence Of The Girls, A Thousand Ships, And For The Most Beautiful, Richard K. Sheldon May 2021

Fan Fiction And The Trojan War: Contemporary Euripidean Perspective On The Treatment Of Enslaved Women In The Silence Of The Girls, A Thousand Ships, And For The Most Beautiful, Richard K. Sheldon

LSU Master's Theses

This study examines three contemporary novels of fan fiction, authored by women, that retell the Trojan War: Emily Hauser’s For the Most Beautiful (2016), Pat Barker’s The Silence of the Girls (2018), and Nathalie Haynes’ A Thousand Ships (2019). This study offers a reading of contemporary Homeric reception by analyzing the conversations that the novels initiate between each other, Homer’s Iliad, and Euripides’ tragedies, Hecuba (424 BCE) and Trojan Women (415 BCE). The study establishes a connection between the three authors and Euripides by treating the novels as works of fan fiction. In so doing, the study identifies …


An Analysis Of Symbolic Violence In Classical Texts Comparatively To Modern Feminist Adaptations, Marisa Berner May 2021

An Analysis Of Symbolic Violence In Classical Texts Comparatively To Modern Feminist Adaptations, Marisa Berner

Senior Theses and Projects

This thesis explores the symbolic violence and misogyny present in Classical texts, and then compares them to modern feminist adaptations or retellings of the same stories. We explore the treatment of Briseis and other enslaved women in the Greek camp throughout the Iliad, and compare Homer’s perspective to Pat Barker’s in her book Silence of the Girls. We then look at Ovid’s Metamorphoses compared to Wake, Siren by Nina Maclaughlin, and finish with the comparison of Euripides’ plays Iphigenia at Aulis, Iphigenia Among the Taurians, and Hecuba to A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. The thesis …


"The Greek Gods Don't Exactly Show Up For Their Kids' Basketball Games": Adapting Epic Convention Through Family Dramas In Rick Riordan's The Last Olympian, Hannah Mcginnis Jan 2021

"The Greek Gods Don't Exactly Show Up For Their Kids' Basketball Games": Adapting Epic Convention Through Family Dramas In Rick Riordan's The Last Olympian, Hannah Mcginnis

Capstone Showcase

Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians saga bridges the gap between ancient myth and modern coming-of-age. In this article, the assertion that The Last Olympian is essentially an epic for the new generation invites an examination of the Homeric-heroic tropes and characteristics which are attributed to Riordan's characters. This analysis explains that through the combined motifs of time, age, and family, Riordan actively adapts and subverts these Classical conventions into a modern mythography for young readers.


Shipwrecked Spouses: Leukothea’S Veil And Marital Reunion In The Odyssey, David West Nov 2020

Shipwrecked Spouses: Leukothea’S Veil And Marital Reunion In The Odyssey, David West

New England Classical Journal

This article proposes a new view of the mysterious incident in which Odysseus wears Leukothea’s veil to make it safely ashore in Odyssey 5, arguing that it bears directly on one of the epic’s fundamental themes, the reunion of the hero with Penelope. Through an analysis of the traditional referentiality of the veil in the Homeric epics and of Odyssean similes associating shipwreck with family reunion, it is shown that Leukothea’s veil identifies Odysseus with Penelope while both signifying and magically effecting the recovery of chastity, and ultimately of his marriage.


Landscape And Lore: River Acheron And The Oracle Of The Dead, Lashante St. Fleur Sep 2020

Landscape And Lore: River Acheron And The Oracle Of The Dead, Lashante St. Fleur

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In order to explore the cultural relationships between people, landscape, memory and ritual, this master’s thesis focuses on the Acheron River in Epirus, Greece, long believed to harbor an entrance into Hades, the Greek underworld. Various entrances into the chthonic, or subterranean land of the dead, are peppered throughout Greece, with each tied to their own local myths, legends, folklore and cults. According to those traditions, Hades could be accessed from several terrestrial rivers thought to be connected to Oceanus, the primordial world-encompassing river surrounding all of creation. Flowing forth from River Ocean were all above- and underground rivers and …


The Gift In The Iliad, Tyler Jordan Jul 2020

The Gift In The Iliad, Tyler Jordan

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

In this thesis I challenge the dominant conception of gift giving in the Iliad. In Chapter 1 I show that the textual evidence does not support the idea that different categories of gift giving are denoted by word choice. In Chapter 2, I show that modern theories are not able to explain perfectly the instances of gift giving in the Iliad. Furthermore, I show that the use or avoidance of gift-terms in the poem can carry meaning. In Chapter 3, I take the conclusions from the previous two chapters and apply them to a focused analysis of the …


Mythic Background, Erwin F. Cook Apr 2020

Mythic Background, Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

This essay focuses on the influence of Indo-European and ancient Near Eastern myth on Homeric poetry. It considers the relationship between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Iliad, and the motif of the hero’s combat with a dragon.


Mythic Background, Erwin F. Cook Jan 2020

Mythic Background, Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

Myth, according to a well known formulation by Walter Burkert, “is a traditional tale with secondary, partial reference to something of collective importance” (1979: 23). Andrew von Hendy, who declares Burkert’s definition the “gold standard” in classical studies, offers a Marxist reformulation, so that myth “is traditional narrative with a high degree of ideological saturation” (2002: 269, 277). This definition accords with the fact that muthos, the Greek word that most closely approximates myth, also designates “story” generally, and, as we might expect in an oral culture, “speech” (its meaning of “fiction” is post-Homeric). It also allows …


Teaching Homer’S Odyssey Through Charles Darwin’S The Descent Of Man: An Ancient Version Of Evolution, Lois A. Cuddy Jan 2019

Teaching Homer’S Odyssey Through Charles Darwin’S The Descent Of Man: An Ancient Version Of Evolution, Lois A. Cuddy

New England Classical Journal

This paper argues that Homer’s Odyssey was the world’s introduction to ideas about human evolution popularized by Darwin and that these ideas are recognizable in the individuals and communities that the hero and his son encounter on their journeys. Homer represents the stages of human evolution through the characteristics of various social groups described in the Odyssey , such as the Cyclopses, Lastrygonians, Ithacans, Kikones, and Phaeacians, as well as through the characteristics of noteworthy individuals such as Helen and Penelope. This comparison of different communities and individuals seems to mirror Darwin’s hierarchy of evolution in The Descent of Man. …


Homeric Time Travel, Erwin F. Cook Jul 2018

Homeric Time Travel, Erwin F. Cook

Classical Studies Faculty Research

It has been a commonplace among anthropologists since Malinowski that during the performance of traditional stories the listening community experiences the primordial past when the gods still appeared freely to humans. Significantly, this involves not a return to the past, but a return of the past. The Odyssey not only depicts its own hero as a character from the heroic past, in which the gods were intimately involved with the heroes who fought at Troy, but also as one who brings the past with him when he returns home to an Ithaca that represents a greatly diminished present. In so …


Homeric Studies, Feminism, And Queer Theory: Interpreting Helen And Penelope, Rachel H. Lesser Jun 2018

Homeric Studies, Feminism, And Queer Theory: Interpreting Helen And Penelope, Rachel H. Lesser

Classics Faculty Publications

Nancy Sorkin Rabinowitz and Amy Richlin’s Feminist Theory and the Classics (1993) and Barbara F. McManus’ Classics and Feminism: Gendering the Classics (1997) provided ground-breaking surveys of the feminist revolution in classical studies, and their work leads us to the question of the feminist impact on the study of Homer. In this essay, I review the contributions of feminist scholarship on Homer and explore queer theory as a new heuristic avenue for advancing the feminist interpretation of the Homeric epics. With this approach, I follow upon and revise McManus’ use of the concept of “dual-gendering” (a term that I employ …


Emblematic Eating: Reading The Feasts Of The Iliad As Models For Social Order, Erin Welty Apr 2018

Emblematic Eating: Reading The Feasts Of The Iliad As Models For Social Order, Erin Welty

Senior Theses

This paper analyzes the Iliad’s feast scenes as sites that amplify the sociopolitical and economic tensions that permeate the wider plot of the epic. Through a literary analysis of the major feasting scenes of the Iliad, I show how the epic’s presentation of the dais collectively displays particular emblematic values of social equity and fair distribution of resources that manifests in the formulaic language that repeats in each feast scene and produces a sense of stable social organization. At the same time, however, I display how the narrative contexts of the feasts and the narrative presentation internal to …


‘A Word From Another World’: Mourning And Similes In Homeric Epic And Alice Oswald’S Memorial, Corinne Ondine Pache Apr 2018

‘A Word From Another World’: Mourning And Similes In Homeric Epic And Alice Oswald’S Memorial, Corinne Ondine Pache

Classical Studies Faculty Research

This article focuses on Alice Oswald’s 2012 Memorial: A Version of Homer's Iliad and its connections with ancient epic and lament. Oswald’s poem is inspired by the Iliad, but omits the plot and most of the main events to focus on minor characters’ encounters with death and the grief they leave behind. Memorial thus strongly rejects the possibility of heroism on the battlefield, and foregrounds mourning. Oswald’s narrator interacts with both the characters of the poem and the audience, reactivating an ancient tradition for a modern audience, turning readers (and listeners) into mourners, and connecting the dead from the …


Immortality In Literature: The Goddesses Of Ancient Greece, Rebecca Lozier Jan 2018

Immortality In Literature: The Goddesses Of Ancient Greece, Rebecca Lozier

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The following text explores the connections between the mythology of ancient Greece and the society from which it arose. Women are often at the heart of classical myth despite being oppressed members of society. Understanding the role of women in mythology provides insight into women's treatment in ancient Greece. It follows the lasting influence of ancient Greece and its mythology through to the Romantic Period. Understanding how poets used myth, provides understanding into the culture's beliefs about women.


Zero To Hero: Elite Burials And Hero Cults In Early Iron Age Greece And Cyprus, Alina M. Karapandzich Jan 2018

Zero To Hero: Elite Burials And Hero Cults In Early Iron Age Greece And Cyprus, Alina M. Karapandzich

Senior Independent Study Theses

Adulation of heroes, including the flawed, militaristic, authoritative men of Homeric epic, was an important feature of ancient Hellenic culture. This phenomenon is reflected in cults and shrines built in the Archaic period. How did these so-called “hero cults” form, and can Early Iron Age (EIA) elite burials form a connection between the tomb cults of the Late Bronze Age (LBA) and the hero cults of the Archaic and later Classical periods? The purpose of this study is to examine EIA burials whose elite goods and archaeologically visible tombs reflect the burial of a “heroic” person. In doing so, I …


Homeric Time Travel, Erwin F. Cook Dec 2017

Homeric Time Travel, Erwin F. Cook

Erwin F. Cook

It has been a commonplace among anthropologists since Malinowski that during the performance of traditional stories the listening community experiences the primordial past when the gods still appeared freely to humans. Significantly, this involves not a return to the past, but a return of the past. The Odyssey not only depicts its own hero as a character from the heroic past, in which the gods were intimately involved with the heroes who fought at Troy, but also as one who brings the past with him when he returns home to an Ithaca that represents a greatly diminished present. In so …


Archilochus’S Effect On The Homeric Hero: Tracking The Development Of The Greek Warrior, Luke Byerly Mar 2017

Archilochus’S Effect On The Homeric Hero: Tracking The Development Of The Greek Warrior, Luke Byerly

Honors Bachelor of Arts

This paper aims to show Archilochus’ effect on the conception of the Greek hero by identifying various Greek authors’ assessments of heroic qualities and comparing them with those of both Homer and Archilochus. The first chapter will define the Homeric values of the hero as presented in the Iliadand then identify Archilochus’ specific opposition to these values. In this context, Homer is considered the chief architect of the Greek hero, and the authors following Homer are remodeling and altering his original design rather than redesigning the hero altogether. The method used for identifying the Homeric values is a combination …


Dignity In Homer And Classical Greece, Patrice Rankine Jan 2017

Dignity In Homer And Classical Greece, Patrice Rankine

Classical Studies Faculty Publications

Woven into the distress of Homeric epic, which often laments the terrors of war, the violence of passion, and the desperation of life, are records of ancient customs that hint at a deep respect for culture and human worth. To take but one example, recall Hector's refusal to take wine from his mother when he is bloody from battle. This moment is apt to strike modern readers as trivial. In fact, it reifies important ancient distinctions between war and peace, home and battlefield, and the equally ancient sentiment that to everything, there is a season. In this case, no matter …


Review Of "Homer's Iliad: The Basel Commentary, Book Xix", Rachel H. Lesser Jan 2017

Review Of "Homer's Iliad: The Basel Commentary, Book Xix", Rachel H. Lesser

Classics Faculty Publications

Marina Coray’s commentary on Iliad 19, originally published in German in 2009, is part of the ongoing Basel commentary series on Homer’s Iliad, edited by Anton Bierl and Joachim Latacz. So far thirteen volumes of the series have been published in German, and five in English translation. Coray’s commentary is a work of great erudition and will be an indispensable resource for scholars of Homer. Here I focus on the utility of this slightly revised new English edition for anglophone readers at various levels, and consider how this commentary relates to and supplements Mark W. Edwards’ outstanding commentary on …