We were pleased to welcome Gregory Nagy, the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University, who joined members of the Kosmos Society on November 21 for an Open House discussion on “Looking Backward: Through the Lens of Odyssey 24.”
You can view the recording on the Kosmos Society YouTube channel, or in the frame below.
Odyssey 24 is the final “book” of the Odyssey as we know it, but it is also the final book of a complete set of 48 books including the 24 books of the Iliad as well as the 24 books of the Odyssey. In Odyssey 24, the master-singer turns to a retelling of three major scenes that will bring closure to the entire Homeric tale of the Trojan War and its aftermath. Without this closure, the preceding 47 Homeric rhapsodies would be incomplete. More than that, this final rhapsody marks the notional end of the heroic age.
To prepare for the event, you might like to read:
Gregory Nagy, Looking backward: viewing the Odyssey – and even the Iliad – through the lens of Odyssey 24. at Classical Continuum.
Professor Gregory Nagy
Gregory Nagy is the Francis Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Professor of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. He was the Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies, Washington, DC. In his publications, he has pioneered an approach to Greek literature that integrates diachronic and synchronic perspectives. His books include The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry (Johns Hopkins University Press), which won the Goodwin Award of Merit, American Philological Association, in 1982; also Pindar’s Homer: The Lyric Possession of an Epic Past (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), Poetry as Performance: Homer and Beyond (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), Homeric Questions (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996), Homeric Responses (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003), Homer’s Text and Language (University of Illinois Press 2004), Homer the Classic (Harvard University Press, online 2008, print 2009), and Homer the Preclassic (University of California Press 2010). His latest work, Masterpieces of Metonymy, is now available online. He co-edited with Stephen A. Mitchell the 40th anniversary second edition of Albert Lord’s The Singer of Tales (Harvard Studies in Comparative Literature vol. 24; Harvard University Press, 2000), co-authoring with Mitchell the new Introduction, pp. vii–xxix. Professor Nagy has taught versions of this course to Harvard College undergraduates and Harvard Extension School students for over thirty-five years. Throughout his career, Nagy has been a consistently strong advocate for the use of information technology in both teaching and research. He is currently writing articles for Classical Continuum, including commentaries on the Iliad.