Activity 1




Meta-Reflection:

I hope for this site to serve as a way of researching and expressing what I learned in-class through different mediums. I remember in history classes, mediums like youtube videos, paintings, or political cartoons were used to further the understanding of  my classmates. The use of multiple modes in one classroom suggest a counter-thesis to the popular claim that people have one main mode of learning (e.g. reading, listening, or presenting). Another perspective is that humans in general are all multi-modal learners, that different mediums reinforce rather than take away from one's understanding. Thus, I think of myself not only as a collector of different worldbuilding artifacts, but also the middleman of reinforcing worldbuilding knowledge. Right now I only have ideas like games, images, and videos, but my goal with this site in the future is to bring to fruition those ideas and to present different if not thought-provoking explanations on our course material in order to better enhance my peers' understanding.

Who tells the story?

One of the most intriguing parts about Professor Giannopoulou's lecture is how she frames the story as Odysseus' rhetorical appeal to the Phaeacians. To expand further on that point, I've broken down her explanation into first how Odysseus portrays himself and second how he appeals to the Phaeacians.

The Speaker: Odysseus

The speaker of the story of Polyphemus is Odysseus, and his overall goal is to try to appear honorable in front of his Phaeacians . In order to do this, he adds hyperbole to many of his adventures and understates his crew's performance.  Odysseus' flaunting portrayal of himself can be seen by the following quotation:

"that rich haul we dragged away from the place we

shared it round so no one, not on my account,

would go deprived of his fair share of spoils.

Then I urged them to cut and run, set sail,

but would they listen? Not those mutinous fools;" (Homer 47-51)

Here Odysseus emphasizes the equal share of spoils in order to demonstrate that he is a just leader. He adds the "not on my account" to really place himself as the arbiter of sharing the goods. Here as well, the crew seems uncharacterized and grouped together as those "mutinous fools." Even though perhaps not all of them had disobeyed Odysseus, he is using hyperbole to emphasize himself as the most wise yet taken for granted aboard the ship.

The Audience: the Phaeacians

The audience of the story of Polyphemus is the Phaeacians, a region of shipbuilders and god-fearing Greeks. As such, in order to appeal to the Phaeacians, Odysseus portrays him and his crew as sophisticated and respecting the gods while portraying Polyphemus as barbarous and blasphemous. One example of this portrayal is the following:

"'Judge for yourself what stock our ship had stored.

I brought it here to make you a fine libation,

hoping you would pity me, Cyclops, send me home,

but your rages are insufferable. You barbarian how

can any man on earth come visit you after this?

What you've done outrages all that's right!'" (Homer 390-395)

Here Odysseus ensures the audience, the Phaeacians knows that he intends the wine gift to be a libation as a sign of respect to the Gods. the gift also represents an act of Xenia for the Cyclops, the holy ritual of guest-friendship. Meanwhile Polyphemus is literally called a barbarian who violates Xenia ("how can any man on earth come visit you after this?"). Another example appears when Odysseus punishes the "crimes" of Polyphemus:

Hoisting high that olive stake with its stabbing point,

straight into the monster's eye they rammed it hard-

I drove my weight on it from above and bored it home

as a shipwright bores his beam with a shipwright's drill (Homer 393-396).

In this case, Odysseus uses the shipwright analogy to appeal to the Phaeacians, who were themselves shipbuilders. The analogy also shows a separation between the brutish cyclops (literally called a "monster") and the superior "intellect" or "wisdom" of the humans.

As a side note: I also found it interesting how cyclopes were portrayed in other media. Sometimes they were not the big thundering cannibals that Odysseus, the one who tells the story, portrays them as. For example, in this scratch game I found (which was most likely programmed by a child), the cyclopes are small cubes that can be picked up and terrorized by the player (who is acting as a God in this instance). This game shows that the imagination and depiction of the cyclopes can vary greatly depending on the speaker (or in this case coder). To play the game, you press the green flag to start the game,  "Q" and move your mouse to control the left hand, "E" and move your mouse to control the right hand, "SPACE" to summon a cyclops, and holding "W" will charge a beam that eventually fires and obliterates everything in its path. Due to the destructive nature of this game, the God the player represents is almost akin to Zeus, or at least the version of Zeus embodied by the Cyclopes' quote "it must be a plague sent here by mighty Zeus" (Homer 458).

Who claims the space as host or guest?

Part of the question of who claims the space as host or guest was explained by Professor Giannopoulou in terms of each's role in Xenia and who violated those roles in Xenia. I found it interesting her idea that the Cyclops was entitled to the space as host and that Odysseus had intruded on his space without a formal invitation, leading to a breach of Xenia. Using Professor Giannopoulou's interpretation as a baseline, I decided to explore other sources' interpretation of Xenia.

I found a comic that explains Xenia in a different perspective. This comic seems to favor the traditional viewpoint that Polyphemus got punishment for eating Odysseus' men and thus twisting the gift-giving. Considering however that the presents should "link guest and host families together," wine designed for deceit and overindulgence is in fact the complete opposite of the intention for the gift-giving. This can be seen with the quote "So he declared. I poured him another fiery bowl--three bowls I brimmed and three he drank to the last drop, the fool, and then, when the wine was swirling round his brain..." (Homer 404-406) where it is evident that Odysseus is trying to make the Cyclopes drunk. Interestingly, this source doesn't address a guest who does not ask before taking hospitality, such as when Odysseus takes the cyclops' cheeses and creates a fire in the cave prior to Polyphemus returning (Homer 260-262). Yet, all the source mentions is that a guest should not overstay their welcome, in which case technically Odysseus left quickly after blinding the cyclops.

Bibliography