NOTE: Remember that Paper #1 is due on Friday by 5pm [no class]. Please let me know if you have any concerns or questions. The assignment can be found a few posts beneath this one.
Answer TWO of the following for Monday's class:
Q1: Why does Athena take the form of Mentes, an old family friend, rather than simply appearing to Telemachus in her natural form? Is Telemachus (or others) fooled by the disguise? What might this suggest about the gods' relationship with mankind, and how might it relate to what we read in The Epic of Gilgamsesh?
Q2: In Book 3, Athena tells Telemachus, "where your own intelligence fails, a god will inspire you" (30-31). Throughout the book, the gods prod our heroes and give them direction (often, quite insistently) about what to think and how to act. Are heroes still heroic if they are merely the puppets of the gods? Can we celebrate the achievement of mere mortals if they require the insight of the gods to achieve their successes?
Q3: In Book 2, how do the suitors justify squatting on Odysseus' property and besieging his wife with offers of marriage? Is this the moral or ethical thing to do? Does the text hint that they are transgressing what is right? Or given the circumstances, are they perfectly within their rights to do so? What are the arguments for and against? (you might also consider the gods' opinion)
Q4: Book 4 is fascinating in that it imagines Helen of Troy living back with her husband, Menelaus, after the Trojan War (the war was fought because she ran away with Paris to Troy, and Menelaus and his brother, Agamemnon, had to raise an army to bring her back). How does the poem depict Helen at this stage of her life? Is she given the Pandora or Eve treatment here (as we discussed in class on Wednesday)? Is this a man's depiction of a justly repentant wife? Or is it more nuanced and dramatic?
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