Rise of Odysseus

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Epics were originally oral and later became narratives. The basic guideline for epics is long narrative poems that are about a serious or worthy event. In this case the epic has to do with the events of a hero that represented an entire nation. The events of this hero are dramatic and tae place in a vast amount of area, which makes it more worthy. The epic poem also includes super natural human beings, another requirement for epics. In Homers The Odyssey Trans. Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Vintage Books, 1990 the use or these epic requirements employ the tale in a exceptional fashion. In other words these epics guidelines are used to the best of their ability to make Homer’s majestic poem outstanding.

Odysseus is one of the many first renowned Greek heroes’ for his intellect and strength. This is one of the key features of an epic. The person being regarded must be extraordinary. Odysseus was highly regarded for his ability to reason, he often is view as patient in this epic, and compared to us or anyone else we can just try to have patience. His patience saved him and his men many times and also gave him time to study and evaluate tactics. So Homer has to make Odysseus greater than great by giving him these attributes that no normal human can posses. The epic begins with Odysseus defeat and defeated tragedy. After ten years he still has not return home to Ithaca & is being held captive by Calypso, which introduces the Supernatural of epics into the poem another key ingredient of epics. Athena as well is introducing in the begging disguised as Odysseus old friend entering his kingdom to reveal the chaos of the city without their King. This shows how much of a great man he was that only he can run a city and no one can take his...

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... with a epic, he places Calypso into the story line and adds the opportunities that she give Odysseus to make him be viewed as superhuman and intellectual.

Now skipping through some episodes of this poem to the end and created some thoughts. Penelope never made the test of shooting the arrow through the axes till Odysseus was there why didn’t she do that early in the poem when he was away. Homer places that significance of the strength of Odysseus in the beginning and very end. This strength makes an epic an epic. Another key of epics are “The hero's success or failure will determine the fate of that people or nation”. In this poem Odysseus claim back his rightful position and destroys all man who tried to interfere with his position. His nation’s faith was determined by his success or failure because it was slowing demolishing until he who ran his nation returned.

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