Epic Beginnings
This poet is traditionally credited with composing The Iliad and The Odyssey.
Who is Homer?
The King of Ithaca
This god is angry with Odysseus and causes many of his troubles.
Who is Poseidon?
Odysseus' father, wife, and son.
Who are Laretes, Penelope, and Telemachus?
The Greek code of hospitality.
What is Xenia?
Oedipus unknowingly fulfills this prophecy.
These twelve characters were hanged.
What are the maids?
The Iliad primarily takes place during this war.
What is the Trojan War?
This Greek warrior at the center of The Iliad.
Who is Achilles?
This one-eyed giant traps Odysseus and his men in a cave.
Who is Polyphemus?
Odysseus must travel to this realm to speak with the prophet Tiresias.
What is the Underworld or Hades?
What is dramatic irony?
Oedipus' wife and mother.
Who is Iocaste?
The type of diety Penelope's mother is. And also Achilles' mother.
What is a naiad?
An epic poem usually begins with this for inspiration.
What is an Invocation to a Muse?
Odysseus came up with this famous war-ending strategy involving a wooden structure.
What is the Trojan Horse?
This enchantress turns Odysseus’ men into pigs.
Who is Circe?
This swineherd remains fiercely loyal to Odysseus.
Who is Eumaes?
A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past, typically for a period or place with happy personal associations.
What is nostalgia?
Oedipus solves this creature’s riddle, becoming king.
What is the Sphinx?
The character who tries to drown Penelope in the sea.
Who is her father, Icarius?
Two major literary devices used heavily in Homer’s works.
This Trojan prince kills Patroclus, leading to his own death at the hands of Achilles.
Who is Hector?
Their fruit makes Odysseus' men want to stay on their island.
The king who offers his daughter Nausica's hand to Odysseus in marriage.
Who is Alcinous?
What it says on the golden apple that Eris tosses into a wedding crowd.
What is "to the fairest"?
Who says: "Now our afflictions have no end . . .The plague burns on, it is pitiless."
The Chorus
The first person to recognize Odysseus by his scar.
Who is Eurycleia?
The Odyssey opens in the middle of the action, a technique known by this Latin term.
What is in medias res?
This Greek hero pretended to be insane to avoid joining the Trojan War.
Who is Odysseus?
This six-headed monster devours some of Odysseus’ men as they pass through a narrow strait.
Who is Scylla?
Odysseus spends seven years on this island with the nymph Calypso.
What is Ogygia?
“primarily an error in judgment which may arise from ignorance or moral shortcoming”
What is Hamartia?
In the structure of a Greek play, the change from good to bad fortune or vice versa.
What is REVERSAL or PERIPETIA?
A Greek societal structure that Attwood critiques (or questions) in The Penelopiad.
What is the patriarchy? OR What is class hierarchy?