We were pleased to welcome Professor Olga Levaniouk (U. of Washington) for an Open House Discussion on Penelope & Weaving. Our discussion was informed by the descriptions of Penelope’s weaving in Scrolls 2, 19, and 24—especially the focus passages below. You can watch the recording in the frame below, or on our YouTube channel. Focus Passages Odyssey ii 85–128 [85] “Telemakhos, insolent braggart that you are, how dare you try… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Gregory Nagy and guests, for an Open House session during which we discussed the epic cycle, oral poetics, and composition in performance, including: what the wheel of a chariot means how ring composition works how a performer relates to the audience what happens with predictions within the narrative the difference between improvisation and deep structure/surface structure multiformity vs interpolation You can watch the recording on… Read more
~ A guest post by Laura Ford ~ Continuing our look at the etymology of proper names, it is interesting that the two women who jointly raised Odysseus have very similar names: Eurycleia means “broad fame,” and Anticleia means “opposing fame.” Do their names constitute a clue concerning their respective attitudes towards Odysseus’ quest for kleos by joining the expedition to Troy? Eurycleia was Odysseus’ wet nurse and the one… Read more
We were delighted to welcome Professor Gregory Nagy (Harvard University) with his guests Professor Leonard Muellner (Brandeis University) and Douglas Frame, for an Open House Discussion. You can watch the recording below (or on our YouTube channel), and scroll down to see a summary of the main themes discussed and links to works referenced during the discussion: We had been invited to post questions ahead of this week’s visit and… Read more
|1 That man, tell me O Muse the song of that man, that versatile [polu-tropos] man, who in very many ways |2 veered from his path and wandered off far and wide, after he had destroyed the sacred citadel of Troy. |3 Many different cities of many different people did he see, getting to know different ways of thinking [noos]. |4 Many were the pains [algea] he suffered in his… Read more