Books 1-4 Highlights

• Exposition

• Athena’s affection for Odysseus and family

• Penelope’s conflict w/suitors

• Telemachus’ conflict w/suitors and secret plan to leave

• Telemachus visits Pylos (Nestor) and hears about dad

• Telemachus visits Lacedaemon (Menelaus) and hears more about dad

• Xenia

• Gods in disguise

• Value of sacrifice to gods

• Suitors plan to kill Telemachus

Books 5-8 Highlights

• Calypso, seductress, ordered by Zeus to let O go; she agrees and helps him

• Poseidon spots O on the seas and sends storm

• O washes up on an island and encounters Nausicaa, clothes washer (more xenia)

• Goes to see Poseidon, but stops at Nausicaa’s parents first - protected by Athena’s mist

• Alcinous and wife provide ship, crew, feast for O, but they don’t know who he is.

• First they have big track and field event and show off their dancing skills

• In song they recount Trojan War and O cries

• Alcinous asks him who he is

Books 9-12 Highlights

• Odysseus tells the stories of his wanderings to Alcinous (he wants A to help him get home)

• Odysseus reveals his identity

• Flashbacks: (many other myths are told here)

  • Zeus hits with a storm

  • Lotus Eaters

  • Cyclops blinded in cave, the curse by Poseidon

  • Cannibals

  • Circe turns men into pigs

  • Hades: more smaller stories of dead heroes and villains

  • Sirens

  • Book 12 ends with O flashbacks complete, men dead, on Calypso’s island