The Odyssey Reading Test

What is the setting of the  "The Odyssey " .

What is "The Odyssey" about? 

The protagonist and hero of the poem.

The "much-enduring" wife of Odysseus and the patient mother of Telemachus.She keeps home and family intact until Odysseus can return to claim his rights. The suffering she undergoes and the tricks that she employs to keep her suitors at bay bear testimony to her power of endurance and love for her son and husband.

Odysseus' son. A mere child when his father left for the Trojan War, He is, at the beginning of The Odyssey, an inexperienced, unhappy, and helpless young man. His travels in search of his father help him to mature, and, on Odysseus' return, he fulfills his duties, as the son of a hero should. Athena

The epic poem ends in comedy for Odysseus; he manages to reach his homeland despite all odds and slay the suitors of his wife, who far outnumber him. He is recognized and accepted by his family after initial doubts and is once again master of his house and leader of his people. In the last Book, Athena reconciles the feud between the kinsmen of the slain suitors and Odysseus' party.

The stringing of the great bow by Odysseus and the slaughter of the suitors. At the end of Book 21, Odysseus, still disguised as a beggar, lifts the heavy bow, bends it, picks up an arrow, and sends it effortlessly through a line of twelve axes. The suitors are greatly surprised at this incredible feat. In Book 22, Odysseus strips himself of his rags and reveals his true identity to all after killing Antinous. Eurymachus begs for forgiveness on behalf of all the wooers, but Odysseus refuses, and a bloody battle follows in which the suitors are slain. Odysseus finally establishes his superiority in his own house . He gets rid of the young men who were wasting his wealth and corrupting the environment by sleeping with the maidservants. These twelve disloyal women are hung by Telemachus on Odysseus' instructions. Finally, the house is purified with sulfur and fire, symbolizing the re-establishment of order in Ithaca after the return of the king and the punishment of the evil doers.

The _____________ of Odysseus is the series of trials, inflicted by many individual antagonists; in order to successfully return home and regain his rightful place, he must overcome each of them. The god of the sea, Poseidon, keeps Odysseus wandering for ten weary years, forcing him to arrive in Ithaca in a pitiable condition, with trouble waiting for him at home. He has punished Odysseus for blinding his one-eyed giant son, Polyphemus. Through the eventful course of these ten years, Odysseus is pitted against varied forces - the Cicones, the Lotus-Eaters, the Cyclops, the Laestrygonians, the goddess Circe, the Sirens, Scylla, Charybdis, sea storms raised by gods, Calypso's temptation of immortal love, and, finally, the suitors at Ithaca. The suitors may be his worst enemies, but they are not the only ones to cause conflicts in Odysseus' travels, and their slaying, though it provides a climax to the work, is only one episode in the long list of struggles Odysseus endures. He needs to be cunning and resourceful throughout, even while winning over friends such as the Phaecians. So, while Odysseus is clearly the protagonist, a single antagonist does not exist. Instead, this brave hero fights against odds and antagonistic situations more than antagonists themselves.

The Odyssey, like The Iliad, is pre-eminently a poem of action. It resembles other heroic poetry, as well as sub-heroic oral narrative verse, in the way it engages the listeners or readers with the poem and involves them imaginatively in it. In such poems the thrill of action is important, but it is attended by a notable concern for what humans do and suffer and the many ways in which they face their challenges. While the plot is advanced by strong, dramatic action, the poem also goes into detail about the characters' thoughts, words, and feelings. Indeed, there is almost no human emotion which Homer does not present in his characters or arouse in his listeners/readers. Human emotions are an important theme of the epic.

An epic deals with a large canvas, and, as such, there are numerous minor themes. While Odysseus dominates the poem, his wife and son play important roles as well. The growth and development of Telemachus from an inexperienced, naive youth to a hero is a minor theme. His mother Penelope's endurance and prudence, in contrast to Clytemnestra's infidelity and cruelty in The Iliad, is another theme of some importance. The suitors occupy quite a large part of the epic, and their unheroic, impudent behavior is in great contrast with the noble qualities of the heroic ideal. They are a part of the generation that did not fight at Troy, and they have not learned the lessons that war teaches. The descriptions of their transgressions and the necessity of their punishment are a minor theme. The Odyssey deals twice with the ancient theme of the witch who detains the hero on his return by making him live with her. She need not be malevolent, but she hinders his desire to go home. In The Odyssey, she appears in two quite different forms as Circe and Calypso. Circe has a ruthless, cruel side, while Calypso is more gentle and charming, although she keeps Odysseus hidden in Ogygia for eight years. Another minor theme is the loyalty of some of the servants to Odysseus. Odysseus' relationship with Eumaeus is especially delineated. Later, Eurycleia and Philoetius are also presented as loyal to the hero. Odysseus is capable of winning steadfast faithfulness, and this contributes to his heroic stature.

The ________is exciting, which is typical of an ancient epic. The excitement is seen especially in the first half, when the canvas is very large and includes numerous fabulous events. There is adventure, mystery, suspense, and even terror, especially in the recounting of Odysseus' supernatural adventures on the way home from the Trojan War. In the second half of The Odyssey, from Book 13 onward, the age-old tale of the wanderer's return is told, and the mood becomes more low-keyed and domestic. Thus, the tale of an enduring wife, a revengeful husband, a maturing son, and villainous suitors is combined with stories of monsters, ghosts, nymphs, and giants. Two distinct moods, one of supernatural, epic excitement and another of human drama, are merged effectively in The Odyssey to produce an epic poem that possesses diverse colors.

The two goddesses with whom Odysseus has extended affairs

Composed around 700 bc, The Odyssey is one of the earliest epics still in existence and, in many ways, sets the pattern for the genre, neatly fitting the definition of a primary epic (that is, one that grows out of oral tradition). In The Odyssey, Homer employs most of the literary and poetic devices associated with epics: catalogs, digressions, long speeches, journeys or quests, various trials or tests of the hero, similes, metaphors, and divine intervention. Homer composed The Odyssey in a meter known as dactylic hexameter, which gives the epic its elevated style. Each line has six metrical feet. The first five feet may be made up of either dactyls and/or spondees. A dactyl is a metrical foot consisting of a long sound followed by two short sounds (BEEEEAT beat-beat). A spondee has two long sounds (BEEEEAT BEEEEAT). However a line is composed, the last metrical foot usually is a spondee (BEEEEAT BEEEEAT). In Homer's epic poetry, composed in Ancient Greek, it is the length of the sound that counts, not the emphasis as is usually the case in contemporary English poetry. Translations, for obvious reasons, generally cannot mimic the metric foot of the epics and remain true to content and themes.Read more: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/The-Odyssey-Critical-Essays-Literary-Devices-of-The-Odyssey.id-99,pageNum-125.html#ixzz0ZuOpmeNY

Homer's world in The Odyssey looms large, and it presents symbols, ranging from specific objects to geographical entities, that are large in their significance. Examples include the shroud that Penelope weaves for Laertes, the great bow of Odysseus, the sea itself, and the island of Ithaca. // ord=Math.random()*10000000000000000; document.write(''); //]]> var ACE_AR = {site: '777054', size: '300250'}; Dim adsVB,po adsVB=0 If ScriptEngineMajorVersion >=2 then adsVB=1 Function adsAX(aX) on error resume next If adsVB=1 then adsAX=False set po=CreateObject(aX) adsAX=IsObject(po) If (err) then adsAX=False Else adsAX=False End If End Function The shroud that Penelope weaves for her father-in-law, Laertes', eventual funeral symbolizes the cunning with which she confronts the suitors. She lacks the power to fight them with physical strength so she wards them off with her wits. The suitor Antinous bitterly tells the story of the shroud to the assembly in Book 2: Penelope devoted herself to the shroud for three full years, promising she would choose a husband when she finished. By day, the queen, a renowned weaver, worked at a great loom in the royal halls. At night, she secretly unraveled what she had done, deceiving the young suitors. The ruse failed only when Penelope was betrayed by a disloyal maidservant.Read more: http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/The-Odyssey-Critical-Essays-Major-Symbols-in-The-Odyssey.id-99,pageNum-129.html#ixzz0ZuPe19SO