Talk:The Ancient World (HUM 124 - UNC Asheville)/Texts/Odyssey/Book 1

Archived info on required page content

Please leave this here (but feel free to take this off of the main/Resource page) -Joey Cross (discuss • contribs) 13:32, 10 September 2020 (UTC)

Summary of book

Here, you convey in a readable way what the story of this book is. This should be no more than two paragraphs. You do not need to get into every detail, but make sure all the major dimensions of the story are covered.

Characters

Make a list of all the characters that appear in the book, in order of appearance. If a character appears only in this chapter, write a fuller (but still brief) description (for what that entails, see the character page). For characters that appear in multiple books (like Odysseus or Penelope), link to the entry on the character page. You can add interesting information or trivia for common characters like Odysseus (e.g., that in this book you get the story of how he was born), but you do not need to describe the character in detail. Ideally, someone will do that on the character page.

Ancient worldview

Here, you should discuss examples from the chapter that illustrate specific parts of the ancient worldview. It might be something like the importance of receiving guests, the role that sacrifice plays, or ideas about gender expectations. Make sure you use quotations of the text! You should have at least three examples.

Comments

Great start! When writing about the characters, focus in on how they are presented in Book 1. So, for Odysseus: when do we see him? Is he an important part of Book 1? Who talks about him? How is he described? -Joey Cross (discuss • contribs) 22:30, 14 September 2020 (UTC)

Ancient Worldview

@Samkershner and Matteo Rios: This is looking good! A few thoughts/comments:

• Let's combine the two sections about female gods. Try to come up with a single idea that you can express before giving the examples. Could you combine it with the "respect" section, and make that more of the issue? As always, try to think in terms of storytelling...why is Homer relying on these kinds of hierarchical relationships to create the story? As an author, you can do anything you want...why focus on that? Is it just because these kinds of relationships were ingrained in society? Does it have something to do with making the story engaging and entertaining to an audience?
• I really like the topic of mental strength; the Polyphemus episode is a great place to think about this. I would push you to read closely and see if you can discern more about the attitude the storyteller has on mental strength. Well, first, I should ask you, who is the storyteller here? Does that effect how you evaluate the implicit belief (which you have brought out) about the superiority of mental strength? After doing this, can you take a step back, and maybe theorize some different attitudes that Homer or his audience would have about it??? This is a really interesting topic...feel free to discuss here or as questions, I'll chime in! -Joey Cross (discuss • contribs) 18:26, 21 September 2020 (UTC)