Tagged: odyssey

The First Woman to Translate the Odyssey into English

“Find the beginning.” “Tell me about a complicated man,” reads the first line of classicist Emily Wilson’s new translation of the Odyssey. Published this month, November 2017, the book marks the first time a woman has translated Homer’s epic poem into English. Called “lively, fast-paced” and “contemporary and exciting” by reviewers (indeed, “radically contemporary” according […]

Who was Homer, really?

Homer is known to CC 101 students as the author of the Odyssey, but surprisingly enough, not much more is known about his life story. A recent article published in the National Geographic suggests that Homer wasn’t a person, but a tradition.

Ian Mckellen reading The Odyssey

Ian Mckellen’s voice is excellent. The Odyssey is excellent. Ian Mckellen’s voice reading the Odyssey is even better! This is essentially Mckellen impersonating Homer himself. Are there any other exciting audiobooks of Core texts you have stumbled upon? Let us know!

“Penelope Waiting” by Sassan Tabatabai

Core Professor Tabatabai, in his poem Penelope Waiting, writes: They say: ‘After twenty years, why does she still wait for him? He must have succumbed to Poseidon’s wrath. his bleached bones, on an unknown beach, have become the pelican’s fare.’ To read this poem in its entirety, please visit the Core Office in search of […]

The Penelopiad: A Great Experience

The Penelopiad turned out to be as interesting and multi-layered as we had expected, attracting about 35 Core students and many more theater fans! Following the events of the Odyssey from the female perspective, the play interwove the voice of Penelope and the voices of her twelve maids who are killed in the end at […]

BU Today: The Penelopiad

This article by Susan Seligson of BU Today provides the first reactions to CFA’s rendi tion of Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad. Here is a sample of description: In this contemporary reimagining of The Odyssey, which the author adapted from her 2005 novella, the dead Penelope narrates her tale from a 21st-century Hades, in a state she describes as […]

Charles McNulty on Depictions of Violence in Theater

In this compelling article, Los Angeles Times Theater Critic McNulty discusses the controversial topic of violence in theater. Here is a sample: What is the line between acceptable and unacceptable violence in art? If gruesomeness is the criterion, much of Jacobean drama would have to be banned, including Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” with its graphic scene […]

The Saxophone and ‘The Odyssey’

Relating to the study of The Odyssey by CC101 every fall, here is an interesting fact: great saxophonist Chris Potter draws inspiration from the Greek epic for his music. In the article discussing the matter, Potter is quoted as saying: I read it [the Odyssey] in high school and thought it was cool but didn’t […]

Analects of the Core: Homer on ruling the dead

Yesterday’s analect from Paradise Lost can be contrasted with today’s choice: By god, I’d rather slave on earth for another man—
some dirt-poor tenant farmer who scrapes to keep alive—
than rule down here over all the breathless dead. (The Odyssey, 11.556-8)  

Analects of the Core: Fry on Homer’s genius

Stephen Fry’s BBC mini-series “Fry’s Planet Word” discusses The Odyssey: “Homer’s genius was to create vivid, archetypal scenes that transcended time and place. The Sirens episode is only a few paragraphs long, yet has become embedded in our collective memory.” Check out the video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6W4i6sWCbk0&t=8m22s