...The storytelling in the Odyssey is told in a way that creates or solidifies memory depending on who the audience is. Odysseus, throughout his journey, has told his story to the Phaiacians to solidify, or at least make sense, his suffering that was endured on his journey back home. Later, he creates multiple variations of a story to protect his identity as he attempts to create bonds built on trust with anyone who has not betrayed him while he was gone. By telling these stories, either being about his journey home or about being from Crete, Odysseus is fermenting a memory in his audience that portrays himself as a strong leader/soldier that has endured much pain on his journey home. After telling the Phaiacians his story thus far, Odysseus...
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...Does True Epic Survive the Transition from Oral Storytelling to Literary Work? Oral storytelling has been a cherished tradition for thousands of years. All cultures have adapted their own unique form of painting a picture with words. Whether it is teaching lessons, instilling moral values, recording history, bringing meaning to the unknown, or simply entertaining an audience, the oral tradition is a necessity to all societies. Though the written word is a well respected art form in and of itself, there are many ways in which the oral telling of stories can achieve more than a literary work. I do not believe true epics, such as Homer’s The Iliad and The Odyssey, survive the transition from oral storytelling to literary works. I believe this to be true because a reader will not get the same story as an audience listening to an oral telling. One of the ways that the literary transitions of epics falls short of the oral telling is the lack of control the author has over the reader’s understanding of the intended emotional response. Devices such as emphasis, volume, delivery, intonation, cadence, and facial expressions are all together lost when a work is being read as opposed to heard and seen. An oral storyteller has the ability to change a single sentence from a sorrowful tragedy to a comedic parody using simply their voice and tone. The first lines of Homer’s The Iliad could be argued to be the most important in the book. Within the first stanza, the whole tone and...
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...The specifics of “The Odyssey” by Homer could never truly be related to, most of the events are fictional and far-fetched, but the lessons about fear and struggle can be applied to anybody’s life, whether they lived in 8th century BCE or 2017. “That sense of dislocation has been shared by veterans returning from the field of war since Homer conjured Odysseus’ inauspicious return some 2,800 years ago,” (Alexander). Even today the feeling of returning to a home that is nothing but a memory can be related to, especially by veterans returning from combat. The overall feeling of being lost and out of place are expressed in the epic, and in the everyday life of many people today, including teenagers. “Now we might just as easily call these fears...
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...July 22, 2012 The Anatomy of an Epic When it comes to the art of storytelling, one has to think of the great storyteller known as Homer. There are other great story tellers and epics that stand out in history such as Vergil and his epic The Aeneid. Though there is no duplicate to the epic poems of Homer. Homer of Greece was a blind bard known for a sensational memory and his ability to entertain an audience with the portrayal of his words. Two well known epic poems he told were The Odyssey and The Iliad. Both of these poems are very different from any story or poem written in ancient Greece. The structure, development, and the art of how each epic was told is the reason why each work is different and why each is called an epic. Especially the Odyssey it is the pentacle of an epic poem and contains everything needed to be considered so. The Odyssey is the great story of Odysseus and the sequel to Homer’s other epic the Iliad. The main character Odysseus is put through a lengthy journey on his return home to Ithaca from the battlefield of Troy. Over the span of 24 detailed books Homer tells Odysseus’ path and what he must face to get home. From the raging seas created by Poseidon, Odysseus’ lengthy stay with calypso, and his travels through the underworld. These and other conflicts that Odysseus faces are part of the elements to which make the odyssey and epic poem. In the first book of the Odyssey, Homer introduces a very important element of his Epic poems, the Muse...
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...Our ancestor told stories to entertain, to comfort each other, to instruct the young in the lessons of living, to pass on their religious and cultural heritage. Storytelling is an integral part of every world culture. In early times, people did not distinguish between adult and children’s literature. Children heard and presumably, enjoyed the same stories as their parents, whether they were the adventurous tales of gods and demons and magic spells and talking animals-as are found throughout the world. According to Russell (2004), Western civilization has its roots in the culture of ancient Greece and Rome, which flourished between about 500 BCE and 400 CE, now known as the Classical period. Greece in the fifth century BCE is in many ways the birthplace of Western culture and so that is where our story begins. In this cradle of democracy and individualism, children grew up with the stories of Trojan War (from Homer’s Iliad) and the travel Odysseus (from Homer’s Odyssey) and the stories of Jason and the Golden Fleece and the adventures of Hercules. They also knew of the now-famous fables attributed to the slave Aesop, believed to be a teacher, writing to instruct his students in cultural and personal...
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...subordinates. Rapport is important because it helps create buy-in. Ask and Analyze says that if you consistently ask questions that lead to creative and outside-the-box thinking, your mind will provide you with creative and outside-the-box answers. The Honda Odyssey example is so true! Transformation deals with reframing. A teachers job is to create a mental paradigm shift by reframing the content and its value and relevancy to their lives. Enthusiasm is contagious. Your attitude carries with it your single most powerful tool to influence your classroom. Part 2 of Teach Like a Pirate discusses crafting engaging lessons. I learned many ideas from Dave Burgess’ hooks. I liked “Move It, Move It”. It encourages kinesthetic activities in the classroom. We do a lot of music and movement in Kindergarten. I have also used the “People Prop” hook by having groups make human letters with their bodies. (ex: making the letter A by laying on the floor) The “Picasso” hook is used frequently in Kindergarten by having student illustrate the sentence or math problem. I use the “Mozart” hook almost daily. The kids love the “Apple Annie” songs and associate the sounds with the songs when trying to read and write. The “Storytelling” hook is awesome in Kindergarten. Kids love it when I speak in character, use accents, change intonations and vary volume for effect....
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...employs figurative language in place of a more concrete single-word noun. Kennings are strongly associated with Old Norse and later Icelandic and Anglo-Saxon poetry. They usually consist of two words, and are often hyphenated. For example, Old Norse poets might replace sverð, the regular word for “sword”, with a more abstract compound such as “wound-hoe” (Egill Skallagrímsson: Höfuðlausn 8), or a genitive phrase such as randa íss “ice of shields” (Einarr Skúlason: ‘Øxarflokkr’ 9). The term kenning has been applied by modern scholars to similar figures of speech in other languages too, especially Old English. Difference and similarities of epic and lyric Epic poetry tries to tell a grand narrative and is closely related to oral storytelling. The Odyssey and The Iliad are two famous examples of epic poetry from ancient Greece. Though some poets still work with epic poetry, it's not as popular as lyric poetry, which is one of the most common types of poetry today. Lyric poetry is interested in communicating a brief moment packed with significance through the use of intense, imagistic language. Epic poetry is poetry that has lots factual based information while the lyric poetry is when the poetry is very factual and has lots of rymes. Also, each sentence in the lyric poetry has ten lines while the other type of poetry has only 3. Get it, theres a BIG difference!!! Differences of Beowulf and Grendal Besides both being ferocious fighters, Grendal and Beowulf are very different...
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...A Perspective on Traditional Literature • Traditional literature can provide a window on cultural beliefs and on the spiritual and psychological qualities that are part of our human nature. The Origin of Folk Literature • Children sometimes identify these stories as “make-believe,” as contrasted with “true” or “stories that could really happen.” • The origin of the myths has fascinated and puzzled folklorists, anthropologists, and psychologists. • Folktales are also of special interest to scholars of narrative theory because of the way the tales are honed by many generations of telling; only the most important elements of the story survive. The Value of Folk Literature for Children • When Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm published the first volume of their Household Stories in 1812, they did not intend it for children. • Originally folklore was the literature of the people; stories were told to young and old alike. • Traditional literature is a rightful part of a child’s literature heritage and lays the groundwork for understanding all literature. Folktales • Folktales have been defined as “all forms of narrative, written or oral, which have come to be handed down through the years.” • Questions often arise about which of the available print versions of a tale is the “correct” or authentic text. Types of Folktales • There will be features of these stories that are unique to each culture...
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...Kubrick substantiated his career and crafted his abilities as a director and a creative mind. During this decade, the United States underwent a generational revolution that influenced many of its cultural facets--in particular, motion pictures. Kubrick's two epics, Spartacus and 2001: A Space Odyssey, frame the beginning and end of this decade and thusly represent it as a time of human progression byway of revolution, sexuality, and violence. Spartacus launched the trajectory of Kubrick's career as well as sparked his creative style, which he then perfected in 2001. Both of these films, the largest productions Kubrick worked on during the 1960s, are therefore exemplary in...
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...Famous Creative Thinkers PHL/458 Famous Creative Thinkers Steven Spielberg is one of the most influential and successful director, producer, innovator and writer of film in the 20th and, so far, the 21st centuries with countless big-grossing, critically acclaimed credits to his name. His films have touched on primeval fears with the film Jaws (1975) or looked at the marvels of this world and beyond with childlike wonder in Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) and ET (1982). Other highlights of his career include the literary adaptations, The Color Purple (1985) and Empire of the Sun (1987), adventure films Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984), featuring the adventures of his daredevil hero, Indiana Jones. He tackled fantasy in versions of Peter Pan, Hook (1991), Jurassic Park (1993), and its sequel The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997) ("Biography.com", 2014). Spielberg’s Jewish upbringing and his lifelong interest in WW II has made for some impressive historical films such as the Holocaust drama Schindler's List (1993) about a businessman who helps save Jews from the Nazis. The highly praised film won seven Academy Awards, including Spielberg’s first win as Best Director. In 1998 his classic film of World War II as seen through the perspective of American soldiers in Europe, Saving Private Ryan (1998), earned him another Academy Award for Best Director. Other successful films, most notably Back to the Future (1985)...
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...switching to different voice channels, he repeats over and over, “HAL, do you read me? Hello HAL? HAL? Do you read me?” “Affirmative, Dave.” I don’t understand this movie. I don’t think anyone does. Director Stanley Kubrick and writer Arthur C. Clarke don’t. In fact, there is no one right or wrong answer to the questions posed in the film. Near the end of the film, it is seen in its most powerful as the visual aspects of 2001: A Space Odyssey quietly urge the...
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...Rizal Technological University Boni Campus Boni Avenue, Mandaluyong City COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS BETWEEN ODYSSEY AND BIAG NI LAM ANG Presented by: Noveno, Sherjun C. Palon, John Paolo T. Presented to: Prof. Lynn M. Besa February 17, 2015 INTRODUCTION Skepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge is of skepticism. To be content with what we at present know is, for the most part, to shut our ears against conviction; since from the very gradual character of our education, we must continually forget and emancipate ourselves from, knowledge previously acquired; we must set aside old notions and embrace fresh ones; and as we learn, we must be daily unlearning something which it has cost us no small labor and anxiety to acquire. Skepticism has attained its culminating point with respect to Homer, and the state of our Homeric knowledge may be described as a free permission to believe any theory, provided we throw overboard all written tradition, concerning the author of the Iliad and Odyssey. Lots of arguments have appeared to run in a circle. “This cannot be true because it is not true; and that is not true, because it cannot be true.” Such seems to be the style, in which testimony upon testimony, statement upon statement, is consigned to denial and oblivion. Odyssey is one of the two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon and is the second oldest...
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...the Latina literature that came out of the 1980s and 90s is Judith Ortiz Cofer. Ortiz Cofer was born in Puerto Rico in 1952. Her parents were young, and the best way her father found to support her family was to join to U.S. Navy. The family moved to Paterson, New Jersey, when Ortiz Cofer was only three, so the family could be closer to where her father was stationed at the Brooklyn Naval Yard. When her father was sent out on missions, her mother took the kids and herself to stay with Ortiz Cofer’s grandmother. This clash of cultures, the Latina homeland and the foreign mainland, spurred Ortiz Cofer’s unique writing style. She acknowledges her grandmother for teaching her “…storytelling is a form of empowerment…passing on power from one generation to another’ (45). Ortiz Cofer has fine-tuned her storytelling to ‘reverberate with symbols and images’ (45) by reflecting on experience. Dabbling in many of the writing styles, she doesn’t favor one in particular, but enjoys combining them. In this selection, “Silent Dancing”, she has done that by writing anecdotes on a home video of a New Year’s Eve party, alternating between paragraphs reflecting on growing up in New Jersey. The home video, made by her maternal uncle at a New Year’s Eve party, is ‘grainy and of short duration’ (46) but Ortiz Cofer was grateful it existed, for the ‘visual aid’ (46) it provided her memory of life at point in time. She notes it was the ‘only complete scene in color’ (46) she can bring to mind from those...
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...Biography of Homer (?-? BC) Beyond a few fragments of information, historians and classicists can only speculate about the life of the man who composed the Iliad and the Odyssey. The details are few. We do not even know the century in which he lived, and it is difficult to say with absolute certainty that the same poet composed both works. The Greeks attributed both of the epics to the same man, and we have little hard evidence that would make us doubt the ancient authorities, but uncertainty is a constant feature of scholarly work dealing with Homer's era of Greek history. The Greeks hailed him as their greatest poet, as well as their first. Although the Greeks recognized other poets who composed in Greek before Homer, no texts from these earlier poets survived. Perhaps they were lost, or perhaps they were never written down‹Homer himself was probably on the cusp between the tradition of oral poetry and the new invention of written language. Texts of the Iliad and the Odyssey existed from at least the sixth century BC, and probably for a considerable span of time before that. These two great epic poems also had a life in performance: through the centuries, professional artists made their living by reciting Homer, performing the great epics for audiences that often know great parts of the poem by heart. It is impossible to pin down with any certainty when Homer lived. Eratosthenes gives the traditional date of 1184 BC for the end of the Trojan War, the semi-mythical...
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...Foundations of Mythology What are myths? Myths are traditional stories in which may describe the origins of the world and of a people. Myths are an attempt to explain mysteries, supernatural events, and cultural traditions. Sometimes sacred in nature, a myth can involve gods or other creatures. And, a myth represents reality in dramatic ways. Many cultures have their versions of common myths. “Myths... attempt to answer the enduring and fundamental human questions: How did the universe and the world come to be? How did we come to be here? Who are we? What are our proper, necessary, or inescapable roles as we relate to one another and the world at large? What should our values be? How should we behave? How should we not behave? What are the consequences of behaving and not acting in such ways?” (Leonard & McClure, 2004, para 3). The English word “myth” comes from the Greek word mythos and has been esteemed from the Greek word logos, both terms translates into English as word or story (Leonard & McClure, 2004,para 7). People have long wondered how the world came into being. They have answered the question with stories that describe the origin of the universe or the world and usually of human life as well. Myths express people's understanding of the world and their place in it. The world's mythologies and religions offer an immense variety of stories. Scholars have discovered that the different cultures fall into broad categories and contain many shared themes. Myths grant continuity...
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