A kid's odyssey: Homer's The Odyssey for young readers

For two years, I have been teaching Homer’s The Odyssey to Grade 12 Classical Civilization students. My students (those who actually read the epic poem…), are absolutely thrilled by the story. I am thrilled myself. It is a great story. I am planning on teaching it again in the Fall.

Recently, my second son, Nate (7 yrs) also discovered the excitement and thrill of the Odyssey… dangerous voyages, meddling gods and goddesses, escaping an inhospitable Cyclops, outwitting bewitching nymphs, battling self-serving and usurping nobles…

He isn’t reading Homer (per se)… Rather, he is reading a 6-part series of chapter books retelling the famous story. The series, called Tales from The Odyssey, is written by Mary Pope Osborne (the author of the bestselling Magic Tree House series). She retains the bulk of the narrative, including the sordid moments (albeit appropriately diluted for young readers). She also uses the Greek names of gods and goddesses, heroes and monsters and she provides a pronunciation guide at the back of each book.

My son couldn’t put them down. He devoured the books as fast and as ravenously as the six-headed Scylla or the one-eyed Polyphemus devour Odysseus’s men.

Great stories truly stand the test of time. For almost three thousand years, people have been delighted by the adventures of Odysseus and his fated voyage. Thanks to Mary Pope Osborne, the next generation is able to whet their appetite for great---and ancient---storytelling. If you know any Grade 2 students who would love to go on a romping ride of a read, look up Osborne’s Tales for the Odyssey.

NB: For big people interested in The Odyssey, I highly recommend the recent award-winning translation by Robert Fagles. For a great audio version, Ian McKellen, who played Gandalf in Peter Jackson’s recent film adaptation of Lord of the Rings, reads Fagles translation (unabridged) on CD.

Greek Drama

In my Classical Civilization course, I am currently teaching the unit on Greek drama. The origin of theatre (as we know it today) comes from the classical world. The original language of theatre used by the Greeks is still used today.

The word theatre, for example, comes from the Greek word “theatron” (i.e., "seeing place"), which was the original location for dramatic productions. A more archaic word for actors, “thespians”, comes from the Athenian “father of theatre” by the name of Thespis. Even the legendary trilogies of Star Wars, Back to the Future, Pirates of the Caribbean and Indiana Jones (soon to be a quadrilogy... or tetralogy...?), are throwbacks to the original trilogies of Greek drama. Greek plays were originally crafted as trilogies (e.g., Sophocles’s Oedipus trilogy: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus and Antigone.) George Lucas et al are paying homage to the Greek forebearers of the craft of visual story telling.

The value of studying Greek drama goes beyond simply celebrating the origins of drama, theatre, movies or trilogies. There is a great deal to learn from the observations of the human condition made by the Greek playwrights. Greek tragedies and comedies essentially ask the question, “how shall we live?” How do we function as individuals in a society, in a civilization? Dr. Peter Leithart, Fellow of Literature at New St. Andrews College, writes this about Greek drama: “written against the background of Homeric heroism, tragedy raises questions about how human beings, with all their ambitions and love of preeminence, can live together in a cohesive community.” The same question can be asked today about modern civilization.

As I commented on Dr. Haykin’s blog on Euripides, perhaps the greatest benefit of studying Greek literature is that you can see where pre-Christian attempts at morality fail to fully meet the needs of human beings. There are unpredictable gods, who deal with humanity inconsistently and in terrifying ways; men are often doomed to hopeless and damning futures, arbitrarily determined by the Fates. You can also see where the Greeks get it right—through insightful and careful observation they come to understand the truth of the humanity condition espoused clearly in Scripture.

I am currently teaching Euripides’ The Bacchae, which (among other things) is about the clash between ordered civilization and Dionysian chaos. Dionysus is a vindictive and unpredictable god who tears down and unsettles human civilization; “terror” (not biblical fear) is the beginning of Dionysian wisdom. I am all the more thankful for the faithful, merciful and constant God of truth and wisdom. Our God does what He says He would do; He is unchanging! He is the God who “builds up” and “establishes” and “creates”… a God of order and peace.

The Marriage Bed and Olives

This post is about sex, but nothing risqué… not that olives are really sexy or anything… unless you’re a vegetarian maybe… Anyway, before Christmas, I taught Homer’s The Odyssey to my Grade 12 Classical Civilization students. What startled my students was the supreme importance Homer places on family. As mentioned earlier in my posts on Family, this view is counter-culture. At the heart of the family is the marriage bed (that’s where babies are made…) As a result, the major symbol in the epic poem is the marriage bed. Getting into bed with his wife marks the end of Odysseus’s “odyssey”---his return journey. My students were used to “sex” being described in every way but within marriage. Marital sex is the supreme goal of Odysseus’s adventures. Let me give you the scoop on ancient Greece’s take on love and marriage…

In the epic poem, Odysseus’s wife and son have been waiting for Odysseus’s return. In the meantime, a bunch of free-loading suitors are loafing around Odysseus’s home, trying to woo the lonely wife and murder the inexperienced son. The home is in chaos and disarray. The suitors are pigging out on Odysseus’s food and wine and treating Odysseus’s servants badly. They are also incessantly flirting with Odysseus’s wife.

When Odysseus returns home, he comes in disguise as a beggar. He is treated badly by the rude suitors who occupy his home, violating Zeus’s doctrine of hospitality. When Odysseus reveals himself as the returned husband, he slaughters everyone in a gloriously vindicating bloodbath. While the hall dripped with blood and bodies were stacked outside the palace, Odysseus makes his way to bed with his wife Penelope.

His marriage bed, which Penelope has kept undefiled, was built by Odysseus before he left on his voyage to Trojan War (cf. The Illiad---by the way, Odysseus is the guy who cooked up the Trojan Horse scheme).

Using a rooted olive tree as the “cornerstone” bed post, he built his bed around the tree. The significance of a “rooted” marriage bed cannot be ignored. Like marriage itself, the bed is permanent and unshakeable. Then he built his bridal chamber around his bed; then he built his palace and city around that. At the centre of the city, literally and symbolically, is the marriage bed. As racy as that sounds, it is the undefiled marriage bed that is the centre of the civilized world in Homer’s mythological masterpiece.

Marriage was Ancient Greece’s way of countering the Fall, returning to Eden.

On a side note, I personally think it would be great to have an olive tree as a bed post.

Family and The Odyssey

Yesterday, I was chatting with a friend about the importance of family. From the outset of creation, God established the family. He made Adam and Eve to be the first marriage and He commanded them to procreate (i.e., make a bigger family). God's relationship with us is described in family terms--we are His sons and daughters; Christ is our brother.

When I was reflecting on the biblical view on family, I couldn't help but think how counter-culture this view has become in the West. North Americans and Western Europeans are not having babies, they are marrying much later in life, more are not marrying at all. In a recent study by the Canadian Department of Human Resources and Social Development, Canadians are spending less time with their families and more time on their own. Eating as a family is becoming a novelty reserved for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. Children are being raised by daycare workers and public schools. Spouses pursue divergent careers, hobbies and holidays. The term Family seems to hold only legal and biological significance.

Some would say, who cares? Leave It to Beaver went off the air long ago. Is family important? Ironically, the two founding worldviews of the Western world---classical and Christian---celebrate family as the building blocks of civilization. I have already mentioned briefly the fundamental import of family from Genesis. Similar value is reflected in the "bible" of Classical Greece, The Odyssey.

The term "odyssey" has come to mean, in a colloquial sense, a quest or journey in which one engages on life altering adventures. However, the Odyssey is really a story about a hero's return home--his "nostos". The hero, Odysseus, shuns pleasures of goddesses and wealth, in order to return to his family. He must be a father to his son and a husband to his wife. His journey does not end until Odysseus has returned to his marriage bed. In the epic, Odysseus's return home to his island kingdom of Ithaca restores order and civilization. Odysseus is an absentee father who realizes the importance of family to a meaningful life and a civilized society. If this sounds too much like a Hallmark card synopsis, you need to read the epic poem yourself. Odysseus's return is not a "touchy feely dead-beat-dad redemption story"--it is a profoundly human proclamation of the monumental significance of family to human existence. This concept of "family" became the quintessential social underpinning for the Greek world.

Western civilization needs to return home; we need our odyssey, our nostos.

An Odyssey in Reading

I have been reading Homer’s The Odyssey this summer. I will be teaching it in the fall. Usually I avoid work related reading during the ephemeral and fleeting summer months. However, I have been meaning to read this classic of Western literature for a number of years. I think my hesitancy to engage Homer was a result of my fear of the text. In the hidden depths of my being, I think I subconsciously perceived that The Odyssey and The Iliad were scholarly and enigmatic masterpieces that exceeded my ordinary and average cerebrum.

My subconscious, however, was wrong. The epic poem is a delight to read. It is very accessible and at times (surprisingly) very simplistic. I discovered that Homer was writing long before the absurd and truly enigmatic prose of the 20th century post-moderns. In stead of harping on complex and psychologically deformed anti-heroes of modern prose, Homer addresses themes and issues that ring true to the very centre of our humanity. As a Christian reader, I am given insight into a truly human hero, Odysseus, and I can compare and contrast this view with the truly divine Christ-hero.

Homer is not high brow. He is for the Everyman. Take up and read, Everyman.

(Robert Fagles’s recent poetic translation comes highly recommended. See also Peter Leithart’s Heroes of the City of Man for Christian commentary of Homer and other classic works)