Great Voyages: The Odyssey, Nostalgia, and the Lost Home

Homer's tale of the wandering hero has loaned its name to the English language for the very idea of a long wandering voyage. In this talk, Dr. Struck considers the idea of a displacement in the epic poem, and how Odysseus negotiates his status as someone separated from where he belongs.

[amarforest]

This is a great lecture. I have watched it at least 3 times.

[BlueBaron]

Unexpectedly delightful! Unexpected because these sorts of filmed lecture videos span quite a range. Always loved the Odyssey since I was a kid back in the early '50s - not because I was some highbrow budding child scholar, but because Kirk Douglas did such a wonderful job of playing Odysseus in the 1954 film 😂 I was past early middle age when I actually read it, and not in Greek certainly. Later I'd regard it in a wholly "unscholarly" light as the finest work of fantasy and science fiction in history. And a *lot* more fun to read than Tolkien 😉

[Fresh]

A great, very authentic way to tell the story. If you read these very old texts (like Homer and Herodotus), you see clearly that they are intended to educate AND to to entertain, to make people wonder, laugh and shock them. Definately not to bore them to death. Always keep in mind that the audience often consisted of children, too.

[slappyusa]

Understanding what is NOT home, gives us a better understanding and greater appreciation for what IS home.

[markusbroyles]

Like the Bible the homer epic just keeps on giving ~

[cherylnagy]

the Mediterranean Sea was the Internet of antiquity

[alanh]

Excellent. Scholarly yet entertaining.

[Lara__]

How come there are no slides to this presentation? They go blank after 18:30.
Maybe having slides would have been more engaging, as a lecture.

[ruibeto]

Schiliemann is from XIX century not XVIII lol ! Very informative and interesting.

[slappyusa]

is there any evidence for a connection between the act of contacting someones "knee" in the Greek custom to apply for supplicant status, thus implying you are in "need" and similar phonetics of the words? In other words, do the words "knee" and "need" sound similar because of an ancient Greek custom? If so that is wild. Thousands of years later and ancient customs still play a role in our vernacular.

[kentroklus]

How this video only has 69 likes is beyond me. Excellent lecture! Thank you!

[Opa-Leo]

The epic poem was transmitted orally over the centuries by professional bards. This tradition is still alive. To hear what Homer would have sounded like go to 17 min of this video. It sounds great even though it is a Turkish epic.

[zapfanzapfan]

Troy was never really lost or just thought to be myth and then to be miraculously discovered by Schliemann. That is just part of Schliemann's mythbuilding around himself. Not to take away from the tremendous work he did there and with other digs.

Interesting lecture otherwise.

[JohnMorley]

Homer says that people who you think are Phoenicians are punished by the gods with their city buried in a mountain.
The message being to not help strangers.
Also, that place is described as an island so not the Phoenicians.
Sounds more like Santoreni to me.

[jonathansutcliffe]

delineation of cities and towns... in what shape are these towns etc set out? anyone checked?

[sinclair]

i'll suggest that you read Felice Vinci's book .. The Baltic Origins of Homers's Tales - then you will get another perspective on what did happen and where ..

[jonathansutcliffe]

autarky
noun: autarchy
economic independence or self-sufficiency.
"rural community autarchy is a Utopian dream"
a country, state, or society which is economically independent.
plural noun: autarkies; plural noun: autarchies
refer to: autochthony... mistakes in history... jewish desire for autarky was also german 1930's state desire... i am not stirring the pot so to speak - merely making vague references to past-present representations of myth...

[jonathansutcliffe]

is it true that the myths, rather than take place on the greek mainland/black sea, took place around the coast of western italy/sicily?

[ivornelsson]

Something is seriously wrong in the interpretation here!

How did they manage to store enough soldiers into the built Trojan Horse to conquer Troya?

Obviously archeologists don’t get this Troy Myth correctly, taking an astronomical and cosmological Story of Creation description to count for geographical locations and describing human psychological and warlike matters.

[Opa-Leo]

02:48 Ancient Turkey, Are you kidding. Turkey was established in 1923. There is nothing ancient about it. Before it was Ottoman Empire.