Professor Michael Silk is from King’s College, University of London, and is the author of Aristophanes and the Definition of Comedy.
He has also written a book on The Iliad and contributed a chapter on The Odyssey to the Cambridge Companion to Homer.

Prof Silk said:The ultra-realist and the ultra-fantastic

There’s a conjunction in The Odyssey between what in contemporary terms would have been thought of as the ultra-realistic and the ultra- fantastic, in its detail about the minutiae of everyday life and its supernatural monsters. It was probably composed near the end of the 8th century BC, and while it harks back to a heroic and semi-mythical age there are many customs described that would still have been in common usage, thereby giving a sense of familiarity to its earlier audiences. Our own culture is prone to place these two extremes in very separate compartments. Reality TV is a like a fiction but striving for a kind of realism. The other extreme is science fiction. They are pushing in opposite directions. There’s still a sort of centre but the extremes are being stretched and a lot of cultural energy is going into these extremes. The juxtapositions that The Odyssey offers can, therefore, be disconcerting.

Tennyson’s experiments with The Odyssey

Tennyson was filled with a strong sense of loss from an early age, exacerbated by the death of his friend Arthur Hallam who was the subject of his poem ‘In Memoriam’. This naturally drew him to the yearning atmosphere of The Odyssey, which he explored in his two pre-Victorian poems ‘Ulysses’ and ‘The Lotus Eaters’. ‘Ulysses’ is written from the perspective of Odysseus already returned to Ithaca but finding it and his wife altered. ‘The Lotus Eaters’ expands a tiny episode into a lengthy poem, reveling in the sensuous beauty of the island and its atmosphere of blissful amnesia, untouched by past or future.

The formulaic system

Language to some extent requires formula and repetition. For example, when somebody asks ‘What did you say?’ it is normal to respond, ‘I said …’ even though the repetition of say/said is unnecessary. The use of formula in The Odyssey has certain aesthetic consequences: it presents a world that is harmonious, repeated, predictable, even amongst the unpredictable. The world is itself unchanged, is what it is, finite. Perhaps the closest contemporary equivalent we have to the epic use of formulaic construction is the limerick, where its predictable shape allows easy memorising. The Odyssey also uses certain stock phrases to fit the metrical requirements of a line, for example, ships are almost always ‘black’. ‘well-balanced’ or ‘hollow’. This form of construction also allows the listener to take in a long tale, as there are only certain parts that are dramatically unexpected.

Amorality

To a modern audience brought up in the Judeo-Christian tradition, the amorality of the looting, killing Odysseus, and the lack of authorial condemnation for his deeds, is sometimes disorienting. He is, however, in many ways a very modern character in his desires, subterfuges and pragmatism, rather than an archetypal, distant hero. And for this – the audience agreed - we love him.

Cathy

And here’s a link to a 15-second Odyssey on Youtube: