The Unity of the Odyssey

According to George E. Dimock, what gives the "Odyssey" its unity is Homer's overarching theme of the meaning of pain and suffering in human life.

Author: George Dimock

Publisher:

ISBN: UCSC:32106014586173

Category: Literary Criticism

Page: 343

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This rich interpretation of Homer's "Odyssey" is unique among modern readings of the poem in its detailed book-by-book approach and in its deeply humanistic voice. According to George E. Dimock, what gives the "Odyssey" its unity is Homer's overarching theme of the meaning of pain and suffering in human life. In Dimock's reading, Homer presents Odysseus -- whose name translates as "Man of Pain" as the greatest sufferer of pain and evil. But it is precisely because Odysseus accepts this challenge that he eventually wins a happiness which would have been unattainable without such testing. His suffering is not only crucial to his coming home and the establishment of his identity, but also allows him to experience what home and self mean with an intensity that would have been otherwise impossible. -- From publisher's description.
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How to Read a Book

To support his point, he shows how the unity of the Odyssey can be summarized in a few Sentences. A certain man is absent from home for many years; he is jealously watched by Poseidon, and left desolate. Meanwhile his home is in a ...

Author: Mortimer J. Adler

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

ISBN: 1439144834

Category: Language Arts & Disciplines

Page: 426

View: 588

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With half a million copies in print, How to Read a Book is the best and most successful guide to reading comprehension for the general reader, completely rewritten and updated with new material. A CNN Book of the Week: “Explains not just why we should read books, but how we should read them. It's masterfully done.” –Farheed Zakaria Originally published in 1940, this book is a rare phenomenon, a living classic that introduces and elucidates the various levels of reading and how to achieve them—from elementary reading, through systematic skimming and inspectional reading, to speed reading. Readers will learn when and how to “judge a book by its cover,” and also how to X-ray it, read critically, and extract the author’s message from the text. Also included is instruction in the different techniques that work best for reading particular genres, such as practical books, imaginative literature, plays, poetry, history, science and mathematics, philosophy and social science works. Finally, the authors offer a recommended reading list and supply reading tests you can use measure your own progress in reading skills, comprehension, and speed.
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The Odyssey

There are four qualifications in the epic aétion : the firft is its unity , the second its integrity , the third its importance , the fourth its duration . The unity of the epic action , as well as the unity of the fable , does not ...

Author: Homerus

Publisher:

ISBN: BSB:BSB10712043

Category:

Page: 182

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The Westminster and Foreign Quarterly Review

To appreciate the unity of the Odyssey , we have only to read the objections taken against that of the Iliad , especially in regard to the long withdrawal of Achilles , not only from the scene but from the memory , and the independent ...

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN: IBNN:BNVA001711242

Category:

Page:

View: 392

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The Foreign Quarterly Review

To appreciate the unity of the Odyssey , we have only to read the objections taken against that of the Iliad , especially in regard to the long withdrawal of Achilles , not only from the scene but from the memory , and the independent ...

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN: ONB:+Z180188801

Category:

Page:

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The Westminster Review

It is argued , also , that the contradictions Odysseus . ... If the Odyssey smaller epics , and it stands to reason that could be proved to have been originally one its unity would be greater than that of the entire poem , of course the ...

Author:

Publisher:

ISBN: UGA:32108056855888

Category: Literature, Modern

Page:

View: 763

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Handbook of Homeric Study

And it is clear that in regard to the work of a somewhat late and artificial literary editor , such a hypothesis is by no means extravagant or even forced ; so that those who would maintain the unity of authorship of the Odyssey have a ...

Author: Henry Browne

Publisher: London Longmans, Green 1905.

ISBN: IND:32000003322791

Category: Civilization, Homeric

Page: 333

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The Problem of the Homeric Poems

32 It is not difficult therefore to come to the conclusion that all the exercitations of certain critics such as Rhode and others to find flaws in the Odyssey are labour in vain , and almost equally so the laborious efforts of such as ...

Author: Sir William Duguid Geddes

Publisher:

ISBN: UCSC:32106005351447

Category: Epic poetry, Greek

Page: 368

View: 123

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Odysseus Hero of Practical Intelligence

In the Poetics Aristotle writes about Homer's need to make a consistent choice from available stories of Odysseus for the sake of plot . The unity of a plot does not consist , as some suppose , in its having one man as its subject .

Author: Jeffrey Barnouw

Publisher: University Press of America

ISBN: 076183026X

Category: Philosophy

Page: 377

View: 780

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In dramatic representations and narrative reports of inner deliberation the Odyssey displays the workings of the human mind and its hero's practical intelligence, epitomized by anticipating consequences and controlling his actions accordingly. Once his hope of returning home as husband, father and king is renewed on Calypso's isle, Odysseus shows a consistent will to focus on this purpose and subordinate other impulses to it. His fabled cleverness is now fully engaged in a gradually emerging plan, as he thinks back from that final goal through a network of means to achieve it. He relies on "signs"-inferences in the form "if this, then that" as defined by the Stoic Chrysippus-and the nature of his intelligence is thematically underscored through contrast with others' recklessness, that is, failure to heed signs or reckon consequences. In Homeric deliberation, the mind is torn between competing options or intentions, not between "reason" and "desire." The lack of distinct opposing faculties and hierarchical organization in the Homeric mind, far from archaic simplicity, prefigures the psychology of Chrysippus, who cites deliberation scenes from the Odyssey against Plato's hierarchical tri-partite model. From the Stoics, there follows a psychological tradition leading through Hobbes and Leibniz, to Peirce and Dewey. These thinkers are drawn upon to show the significance of the conception of "thinking" first articulated in the Odyssey. Homer's work inaugurates an approach that has provoked philosophical conflict persisting into the present, and opposition to pragmatism and Pragmatism can be discerned in prominent critiques of Homer and his hero which are analyzed and countered in this study.
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