Odyssey

Visiting Scholars

Open House | Looking Backward: Through the Lens of Odyssey 24, with Gregory Nagy

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… Read more

Reading Homer

Homeric Greek | Odyssey 1.178–186: Multiple versions, wine-bright sea, and blazing iron

We are pleased to share this segment in the series on reading Homeric epic in ancient Greek. In each installment we read, translate, and discuss a small passage in the original Greek in the most accessible way. If you’ve ever dreamed of reading Homer in the original, here is your chance to do so with teachers who have spent a lifetime thinking about this poetry. With their guidance even new… Read more

History

Paintings at Delphi

After we finish reading the last scroll of the Iliad, we might wonder what happens in Troy after Hector’s funeral. We have parts of what happens next in the Odyssey, in tragedies, and in fragments and plot-summaries. However, in his Description of Greece Pausanias writes an interesting description of a painting which depicted “Troy taken and the Greeks sailing away” (Pausanias 10.25.2)[1], and which was still at Delphi when he… Read more

Topic for Discussion,  Word Study

Beauty in Homeric Iliad and Odyssey

Beauty: a concept of the mind that is intangible, culturally influenced, and fluid. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, say many. The realm of beauty is as old as humanity. The topic canvasses from philosophy to religion from natural to man-made. This is a huge topic, from which I will focus on the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, and explore how people in antiquity thought about beauty. I have… Read more

Gallery

Gallery | Odyssey 22: The Slaying of the Suitors

One of the study groups has been working on Odyssey 22, and in December 2020 Kosmos Society performed this rhapsody as one of the groups taking part in the Reading Greek Tragedy Online: Odyssey ’Round the World event. You can watch the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bjdf99pofjo This Gallery features some visual depictions of this episode, also known as the Mnēstērophoníā, or Slaying of the Suitors. Odysseus has been absent for twenty… Read more