COM504
HOMEWARD BOUND
From The Odyssey to O Brother Where Art Thou?
Autumn 2016 • Thursday 10.00–12.00 • G.O. Jones UG1
PROF. LEONARD OLSCHNER
[ OFFICE HOURS: Thursday 14.00-15.00 & by appointment ]
I
Introduction
II Homer, The Odyssey
III Homer, The Odyssey
IV from Ovid, Epistolæ ex ponto [Letters from the Black Sea]and Tristia [Sorrows]
from Dante, Inferno, canto XXVI
Joachim Du Bellay, ‘Heureux qui, comme Ulysse…’ [‘Happy the man who, like Odysseus…’]
Alfred Lord Tennyson, ‘Ulysses’
V
Honoré Balzac, Colonel Chabert
VI Konstantinos Kavafis, ‘Ithaca’ –
Osip Mandel’štam, ‘The thread of gold…’
Joseph Brodsky, ‘Odysseus to Telemachus’
Erza Pound, Canto I
Robert Graves, ‘Ulysses’
Carol Ann Duffy, ‘Ithaca’
VII
reading week
VIII Franz Kafka, ‘The Silence of the Sirens’ and ‘I have returned…’
IX
Charles Frazier, Cold Mountain
X
Frazier, Cold Mountain
XI
Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad
XII Coen brothers, O Brother, Where Art Thou?
2
The course will introduce students to the extraordinary influence of The Odyssey upon a rich collection
of texts from different genres, periods, and cultures. It will offer an insight into The Odyssey as model for
narrative fiction alongside treatments in lyric and other poetry, and deepen students’ understanding of
the way narrative and verse work generally. Students will develop an understanding of topoi including
nostoi, hospitality, and storytelling, and literary modes including the epic, realism, and comedy. With
reference to comparatist methodologies, students will be able to place each text in its own period and
culture as well as draw connections to texts from other periods and cultures. They will develop
communication skills through seminar discussion and written coursework.
Please assure that you have acquired the texts in plenty of time, and always bring them to class. Remember that you are
expected to attend all course meetings and to have read the texts assigned. If you have any problems with completing
assignments or attending class, let me know in advance by email. If you have to miss a class, then contact a fellow student
for notes, handouts, &c. Please only use your QMUL email address.
Assessment
Course assessments must be submitted electronically and consist of the following:
1. one 1500-word essay (40%), due on the Sunday of reading week (Sun. 12 Nov.
2016 at 23.55)
2. one 2500-word essay (60%), due on the day before beginning of spring term
(Sun. 8 Jan. 2017 at 23.55)
We will discuss essay topics and the actual writing of your essays in class meetings. Please acquaint
yourself with the sections on essay writing and plagiarism in the STUDENT HANDBOOK. N.B.: The
submission of essays after deadlines can only be approved by the Senior Tutor (cf.
STUDENT HANDBOOK).
Reading
[The Odyssey is available in many different translations, although I recommend that you choose one of the following editions, not
least because of useful annotations.]
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Robert Fagles. Intro. and notes Bernard Knox. (Penguin Classics) London:
Penguin 2006.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. Walter Shewring, intro. G.S. Kirk. (Oxford World Classics) Oxford: Oxford
UP 2008.
Homer. The Odyssey. Trans. E.V. Rieu, rev. trans. D.C.H. Rieu, intro. Peter Jones. (Penguin Classics)
London: Penguin 2003.
Homer. The Odyssey. A verse translation, backgrounds, criticism. 2nd ed. Trans., ed. Albert Cook. New
York, London: W.W. Norton 1993.
Charles Frazier. Cold Mountain. A Novel. New York: Vintage 1998.
Marbaret Atwood, The Penelopiad. Edinburgh, London, New York, Melbourne: Canongate 2005.
[Other texts on the syllabus, along with several critical essays, are located in the respective folders on QMplus.]
Further texts relating to the theme of homecoming
Simon Armitage (*1963), Homer’s Odyssey (dramatisation for BBC 2006)
Wolfgang Borchert (1921-1947), Draußen vor der Tür (THE MAN OUTSIDE, play 1947)
François Fénelon (1651-1715), Les Aventures de Télémaque (THE ADVENTURES OF TELEMACHUS, novel 1699)
André Gide (1869-1951), Le Retour de l’enfant prodigue (THE RETURN OF THE PRODIGAL SON, verse and
prose 1906)
Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929), Der Schwierige (THE DIFFICULT MAN, play 1922)
James Joyce (1882-1941), Ulysses (novel 1922)
Nikos Kazantzakis (1883-1957), Οδύσσεια (THE ODYSSEY: A MODERN SEQUEL, novel 1938)
Milan Kundera (*1929), L’Ignorance (IGNORANCE, novel 2000)
3
Zachary Mason (*1974), The Lost Books of the Odyssey (novel 2010)
Claudio Monteverdi (1567-1643), Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in patria (THE RETURN OF ULYSSES TO HIS
HOMELAND, opera 1641; libretto: Giacomo Badoaro)
Publius Ovidius Naso (43 BCE-17/18 CE), Epistolæ ex ponto (LETTERS FROM THE BLACK SEA) and Tristia
(SORROWS)
Harold Pinter (1930-2008), The Homecoming (play 1964)
Erza Pound (1885-1972), ‘And then went down to the ship…’ (Canto I, 1925)
Derek Walcott (*1930), Omeros (epic poem 1990)
Indicative reference works & secondary literature
Erich Auerbach (1968). Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Trans. W.R. Trask.
Princeton: Princeton UP.
Mikhail Bakhtin (1981). The Dialogic Imagination. Ed. Michael Holquist, trans. Caryl Emerson and
Michael Holquist. Austin: U of Texas Pr.
Charles Bernheimer (1995). Comparative Literature in the Age of Multiculturalism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins
UP.
The Cambridge Companion to Narrative (2007). Ed. David Herman. Cambridge: Cambridge UP.
Ernst Robert Curtius (1953). European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. Trans. Willard R. Trask.
London: Routlege & Kegan Paul.
Jean Chevalier & Alain Gheerbrant (1996). Dictionary of Symbols. Trans. John Buchanan-Brown.
London: Penguin.
David Damrosch (2003). What is World Literature? Princeton, Oxford: Princeton UP.
Pierre Grimal (1991). Penguin Dictionary of Classical Mythology. Ed. Stephen Keershaw, from the trans. by
A.R. Maxwell-Hyslop. London: Penguin.
Gilbert Highet (1978). The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences on Western Literature. New York:
Oxford UP.
Lucia Impelluso (2002). Gods and Heroes in Art. Ed. Stefano Zuffi, trans. Thomas Michael Hartmann.
Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Jenifer Neils (2008). Ancient Greece. London: British Museum.
The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (1993). Ed. Alex Preminger and T.V.F. Brogan.
Princeton: Princeton UP.
The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature (1989). Ed. M.C. Howatson. Oxford: Oxford UP.
Christopher Prendergast (2004). Debating World Literature. London: Verso.
W.B. Stanford (1992). The Ulysses Theme: A Study in the Adaptability of a Traditional Hero. Dallas: Spring
Publications.
Tzvetan Todorov (1977). The Poetics of Prose. Trans. Richard Howard, new forward by Jonathan Culler.
Oxford: Blackwell.
For further criticism refer to bibliographies in the above titles as well as to library catalogues and
especially the subject headings/terms (e.g. in the online catalogues of QMUL Library, Senate House
Library, the British Library, and – most useful – COPAC). For secondary literature in periodicals you
can refer to JSTOR as an excellent resource; in your essays make reference to the journals, not the
URL. It is important that you visit and use QMUL Library and Senate House Library. If you do not
already have a reader card for Senate House Library, then see to this at your next opportunity; you
only need to present your QMUL ID at the desk on the 4th floor of Senate House.
websites
COPAC
http://copac.jisc.ac.uk/search/form/main
Comparative Literature Digital Websites
http://www.academicinfo.net/complitlibrary.html
4
Perseus Collection – Greek and Roman Materials
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/collection?collection=Perseus:collection:Greco-Roman
Theoi Greek Mythology
http://www.theoi.com/
The Odyssey (in English & Greek)
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0136
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0135
Ship of Odysseus passing the Sirens (British Museum)
http://www.britishmuseum.org/research/search_the_collection_database/search_object_details.aspx?
objectid=399666&partid=1&searchText=ulysses+siren&fromADBC=ad&toADBC=ad&numpages=1
0&orig=%2Fresearch%2Fsearch_the_collection_database.aspx%A4tPage=2
Diotima – Materials for the Study of Women and Gender in the Ancient World
http://www.stoa.org/diotima/
Bulfinch’s Mythology (1855)
http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/bulf/
Brodsky reading ‘Odysseus to Telemachus’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTd6K9Lrfpo
Guardian article on the lost city of Troy
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2016/aug/09/lost-cities-2-search-real-troy-hisarlik-turkeymythology-homer-iliad
Filmography
Cold Mountain. Director: Anthony Minghella. 2003.
Le Colonel Chabert. Director: Yves Angelo. 1994.
O Brother, Where art Thou? Directors: Joel Coen, Ethan Coen. 2000.
Le Mépris [Contempt]. Director: Jean-Luc Godard. 1963.
The Odyssey. [tv mini-series] Director: Andrei Konchalovsky. 1997.
Il Ritorno d’Ulisse in patria. [opera by Monteverdi] Director: Jean-Pierre Ponnelle; conductor: Nikolaus
Harnoncourt. 1980.
Ulysses. [after Joyce] Director: Joseph Strick. 1967.
Ulysses. [after Homer] Director: Mario Camerini. 1954.