The Odyssey By Homer
Book Review: The Odyssey by Homer
Written by a blind man, Melesigenes better known as Homer, and translated by Alexander Pope, the Odyssey of Homer is a poem about the life of the king of Ithaca, Ulysses, who leaves to fight in the Trojan War, but he doesn't return until 20 years. According to Professor P. Landow, Ulysses is a great athlete and great warrior, heroic, courageous, eloquent, and masterful, and at the same time, he I pious (Landow). In those twenty years trying to get back home, he goes through many adventures including "the angry god Poseidon and the one-eyed Cyclops who try to destroy him, the seduced Sirens with their sweet song who tempt him away from his quest, and the intoxication with Circe captures him through her exotic …show more content…
Homer took over his adopted father's school, but later closed it to travel with his friend, Mentor. He became blind in Ithaca, and moved back the Smyra, where he studied poetry. Afterwards, he became very poor and settled in Cumae and the Cumans called Melesigenes, Homer, because the Cumans call blind man Homers. Homer started to recite verses of his poems to the Cumans, and they honored him greatly. Homer actually wrote songs to be sung by himself and by the people that sung them in the streets and at assemblies, and was put together about 500 years later as a long poem. Since the poems were not written until about 500 years after Homer's death, two French writers, Hedelin and Perrault, think that The Odyssey of Homer was written by several authors not just one. Homer wrote this book because when he moved to Ithaca, he became interested in the legends of Ulysses and became interested in poetry when he moved to Smyrna. According to Fergus M. Bordewich, "It is one of the greatest poems in all literature, rich with psychological insight into the stresses of abandonment, jealousy, pride and shame. It is a fabulous book, so lyrical" (Bordewich). The Odyssey is written in stanzas like some of the stories in History such as the Mahabharata, a great Hindu epic that contains over 75,000 stanzas about a war between two cousins, and Ramayana, another Hindu epic poem, which is similar to The Odyssey, is about the wanderings of a banished prince and his faithful wife (Baiike, et al: 83-85). Everyone leaves behind some form of writing that historians discover. Homer's work was found a long time after his death and was "in the tradition of oral poetry," even though historians think that written language was invented by then (Lombardo: 18).
Written by a blind man, Melesigenes better known as Homer, and translated by Alexander Pope, the Odyssey of Homer is a poem about the life of the king of Ithaca, Ulysses, who leaves to fight in the Trojan War, but he doesn't return until 20 years. According to Professor P. Landow, Ulysses is a great athlete and great warrior, heroic, courageous, eloquent, and masterful, and at the same time, he I pious (Landow). In those twenty years trying to get back home, he goes through many adventures including "the angry god Poseidon and the one-eyed Cyclops who try to destroy him, the seduced Sirens with their sweet song who tempt him away from his quest, and the intoxication with Circe captures him through her exotic …show more content…
Homer took over his adopted father's school, but later closed it to travel with his friend, Mentor. He became blind in Ithaca, and moved back the Smyra, where he studied poetry. Afterwards, he became very poor and settled in Cumae and the Cumans called Melesigenes, Homer, because the Cumans call blind man Homers. Homer started to recite verses of his poems to the Cumans, and they honored him greatly. Homer actually wrote songs to be sung by himself and by the people that sung them in the streets and at assemblies, and was put together about 500 years later as a long poem. Since the poems were not written until about 500 years after Homer's death, two French writers, Hedelin and Perrault, think that The Odyssey of Homer was written by several authors not just one. Homer wrote this book because when he moved to Ithaca, he became interested in the legends of Ulysses and became interested in poetry when he moved to Smyrna. According to Fergus M. Bordewich, "It is one of the greatest poems in all literature, rich with psychological insight into the stresses of abandonment, jealousy, pride and shame. It is a fabulous book, so lyrical" (Bordewich). The Odyssey is written in stanzas like some of the stories in History such as the Mahabharata, a great Hindu epic that contains over 75,000 stanzas about a war between two cousins, and Ramayana, another Hindu epic poem, which is similar to The Odyssey, is about the wanderings of a banished prince and his faithful wife (Baiike, et al: 83-85). Everyone leaves behind some form of writing that historians discover. Homer's work was found a long time after his death and was "in the tradition of oral poetry," even though historians think that written language was invented by then (Lombardo: 18).