Jesse wrote:
To live, to survive to out-trick your
> opponent is the only good for them, thus Odysseus
is
> the most "heroic" of all the Greeks of the two
epics,
> surviving the long journey home even though he is
the
> most underhanded and trickiest sonofabitch of
them
> all! I think that's one of the reasons its so
good.
Excellent post overall on the ebb and flow of Greek morality,
Jesse. Mike: another thing to bear in mind, especially about
Odysseus, is that he is the first truly full-bodied character
in Western literature. He is by turns brave, cowardly,
boastful, modest, wily, unwise, sagacious, and foolhardy. In
other words, he seems like a *man*, not like a flat,
cardboard cut-out of a character, or worse still, some sort
of allegory. It's interesting to note that there is not a
character as fully realized as Odysseus in Western literature
until Shakespeare's Hamlet ambles along to 'strut and fret
his hour upon the stage,' some 2,400 years later.
Lastly, it might be constructive to bear in mind that both
the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed in a preliterate
society, and passed down by word of mouth for nearly two
hundred years from one bard to the next until someone finally
wrote them down in 5th or 6th century B.C. No mean feat, when
you stop to think about it!
Hope this helps and all the best,
Brian
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