Study Questions for Homer's Odyssey

(Images and their descriptions from http://ccwf.cc.utexas.edu/~glham/Mythreader/Odyssey/adventures.html#escape)

In this 4th cent. B.C.E. Boiotian parody, Odysseus' raft is made out of wine-amphoras. Borias, the west wind, appears in the upper right corner

Book 5

You may choose to answer one or two of these questions as homework assignment.

1. How would you describe the relationship between Odysseus and Calypso? Are they lovers, is he her captive?

2. Imagine you were Penelope and believed in Odysseus' loyalty, would you let him get away with his relationship to Calypso?

3. What makes the nymph Calypso feminine, and what about her would be problematic if she were a contemporary first year student at Clarkson?

4. What kind of ideas do you associate with a nymph?

5. Do you see any symbolic meaning in Odysseus' being helped from drowning by Ino and her veil?

Just when Odysseus was about to capsize and drown on his raft, Ino/Leukothea comes along and saves him. She was a mortal (Ino) who, upon death, was changed into a sea goddess (Leuko-thea, the white goddess, reflective perhaps of the foam on the waves). She gives Odysseus a talisman, her cloak, to allow him to safely reach Schira, land of the Phaiacians. This is a post-classical depict of that scene by the Italian painter Tibaldo.

Book 6 and 7

6. How does Nausicaa react to seeing Odysseus on the beach, naked? What kinds of thoughts do you think are going through her mind and his?

7. What does it suggest about the times that Nausicaa's dad suggest that the two should get married?

8. Do you think Homer makes us play with the idea what if the middle-aged Odysseus and the adolescent Nausicaa got together...?

9. Remember that for a long time the story of Odysseus was told, rather than read, and probably more likely told by a man to other men. If we assume that these men, as we do today, tend to identify with the hero of the story, what kind of effect do you think it had on them?

After Odysseus safely reaches the island Scheria (without clothes, which would have weighed him down as he swam), he meets Nausikaa, the local princess of the Phaeacians, who has come to the sea-shore to wash her laundry. Here he approaches her nude, with only a branch held in front of him. Athena is pictured here (probably invisible to the mortals of the scene) as a hero's helper to Odysseus. Nausikaa and her maidens run off in terror, but note Nausikaa's backward glance. She is curious and will listen to him as a suppliant.

10. Note the various rites surrounding hospitality. Why do you think are there so many details about it? What kind of role do you think hospitality played back them?

Book 8

11. In this book we see yet another facet of our hero Odysseus' manliness. What does his refusal to participate in the contest suggest about him, and what his ultimate success?

12. What kind of relationship does this scene suggest between men, and between strangers? Does it remind you of competitive games elsewhere?