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A short thread, thinking out loud about Homer's Odyssey...
I am switching to @EmilyRCWilson's translation of the Odyssey this year in @stugreatbooks. I was struck by Wilson's use of the word "trapped" to describe Odysseus at the beginning of the poem. 1/6
I am switching to @EmilyRCWilson's translation of the Odyssey this year in @stugreatbooks. I was struck by Wilson's use of the word "trapped" to describe Odysseus at the beginning of the poem. 1/6
Wilson has Odysseus "trapped" by Calypso. Fagles, I believe, suggests the goddess "held him back," which is more ambiguous. That phrasing, to me, suggests that Odysseus might just lack the will to leave Calypso... 2/6
But Wilson's "trapped" got me thinking about how often Odysseus is, in fact, trapped.
He is trapped famously in the cyclops Polyphemus' cave. He is trapped by Calypso, trapped in the bowels of the wooden house. He's bound to a mast so that the Sirens will not tempt him... 3/6
He is trapped famously in the cyclops Polyphemus' cave. He is trapped by Calypso, trapped in the bowels of the wooden house. He's bound to a mast so that the Sirens will not tempt him... 3/6
I had previously thought of Penelope as the spouse who is "trapped", while Odysseus, who is unpredictable and unreliable, is roving across the seas. He is unmoored.
Odysseus needs to return to his great rooted bed and become fixed in place again. 4/6
Odysseus needs to return to his great rooted bed and become fixed in place again. 4/6
But perhaps Odysseus and Penelope are both trapped. In what sense might Odysseus be trapped even as he wanders?
I typically think of Calypso, Circe, and Nausicaa as alternative Penelopes - other lives Odysseus might lead. To reach Ithaca he must choose Penelope repeatedly. 5/6
I typically think of Calypso, Circe, and Nausicaa as alternative Penelopes - other lives Odysseus might lead. To reach Ithaca he must choose Penelope repeatedly. 5/6
But maybe we should read the meeting with Alcinous, for example, as a kind of "trap." Does Odysseus have to navigate his way out of Phaeacia in the same way he has to find a way out of the cave of the cyclops? 6/6
