What is fair game for the midterm and final?
If you read attentively, take notes in class, and generally are
truly interested in the material and try to fit it all together,
preparing for the midterm should be a pleasant and rewarding
experience that calls on you to gather and master details about the
many facets of these epics we have discussed.
You should be able to identify the following characters: by
'identify' is meant that you should list things like the important
facts about their family, where they are from, where they occur in
the epics, and what they do in what we have read. Knowing enough to
thoroughly convince someone that you have attentively read the
assigned material and studied the material presented in class
carefully will suffice. You may include details from outside of the
epics, but they are extra, not really what is being asked for here.
How to gather the information: use whatever reference works help,
for example Wilson's appendix or wikipedia, which will point you to
passages that are most relevant: re-read those passages.
Hopefully, you have filled your book with underlinings and questions
and observations in the margin, so it is a landscape you can
recognize and easily situate yourself in.
NOTE: The spelling here may not match Wilson, but it should be
close: it may or may not match Wikipedia either. If you simply
cannot find something, email me.
- Achilles
- Aeneas
- Agamemnon
- Aigisthus
- Aiolos
- Ajax (Oïleus)
- Ajax (Telamonian)
- Alexander/Paris
- Alkinoös
- Amphinomos
- Antinoös
- Aphrodite
- Apollo
- Ares
- Astyanax (Skamandros)
- Athena/Athene
- Charybdis
- Circe
- Demodokos
- Diomedes
- Elpenor
- Eumaios
- Eurykleia
- Eurymschos
- Hektor
- Helen
- Helios
- Hephaistos
- Hera
- Hermes
- Iris
- Kalypso
- Klytaimnestra
- Laertes
- Laistrygonians
- Lotus-Eaters
- Machaon
- Menelaus
- Mentor
- Nausikaa
- Nestor
- Odysseus
- Patroklos
- Penelope
- Philoctetes
- Polyphemos
- Poseidon
- Priam
- Proteus
- Sarpedon
- Skylla
- Talthybios
- Teiresias
- Teucer
- Thetis
- Zeus
Other Items you need to be able to identify:
- Aristeia
- Doloneia
- Teichoscopia
- Catalog of Ships
- The Epic Cycle
- Dactylic Hexameter
- Allegory and the overall meaning of Iliad and Odyssey
- Xenia/Guest friendship
- Supplication
- Epithets
- Telemacheia
- "Homer": what\who is "Homer"
- Milman Parry (and Albert Lord) and orality
- Red Figure vs. Black Figure pottery
- Type scenes
SO what would a good answer look like?
- Teiresias: Teiresias, also spelled Tiresias, from Thebes (in
Thessaly) is a blind seer whom we encounter in Odyssey
when Odysseus goes to the land of the dead. Circe tells Odysseus
not to let any other shades drink from the blood until Teiresias
does. Then, when Odysseus gets there, even before tasting the
blood, Teiresias recognizes Odysseus. After drinking the blood
he prophesies to Odysseus how he can get home and that he will
kill all the suitors.
- Notice the facts there: 1. where he is from, 2. a trait,
blindness, 3. a profession, seer, 4. where in the epics, 5.
what he does in the epics.
- Other facts may apply to other figures.
- You will not need all these facts to pass, and you might get
full credit with less than is here, but that answer would
definitely get full credit.
The timeline on the website:
- There's one in "First Day Notes"
- Be ready to fill in the blanks on a timeline like that
- Know the dates
- Know the names of the periods
- Know why the various periods are significant for this course
- i.e. what material we discuss here fits where on that
timeline
Maps:
- See Wilson P. 94-5 "the world of the Odyssey" map
- Be ready to label all the place names that are in the same
font as "Thrace" and "Phrygia", also be ready to label all the
place names in what is now the areas of modern Greece, the
Aegean Sea, and Asia Minor.
- Wilson P. 96-97 "The aegean and asia minor)
- be ready to label the following:
- crete, cyprus, Rhodes, Sparta, Argos, Athnes, Eunoea,
Tenedos, Lesbos, Delos, Mt Olympus, Troy, Lemnos, Lycia,
Hittites
- P. 98-99 "Mainland Greece"
- be ready to label: Cephallenia, Ithaca, Dulichium (Leucas),
Chalcis, Boeotia, Euboea, Athens, Attica, Peloponnese,
Thessaly, Macedonia, Thrace
- P. 100-101 The Peloponnese
- be ready to label: Lacedaemon, Cythera, Argo, Argos,
Mycenae, Attica, Euboea, Cephallenia, Ithaca, Dulichium
(Leucas), Achaea, Arcadia, Attica, Athens, Salamis, Delphi
Also, simple plot questions, such as the ones on the quizzes, are
fair game.
There will be snippets of text like the following: your task
will be to identify them and explain their significance:
- The hunters came to a wooded valley, and on ahead of them
- ran the dogs, casting about for the tracks, and behind them
- the sons of Autolykos, and with them ___(name omitted)__
- went close behind the hounds, shaking his spear
far-shadowing.
- Now there, inside that thick of the bush, was the lair of a
great boar
- ...with fire from his eyes glaring
- the boar stood up to face them close. There first of all was
noble __(name omitted)__
- who swept in, holding high in his heavy hand the long spear
- and furious to stab, but too quick for him the boar drove
- over the knee, and with his tusk gashed much of the flesh
- tearing sidewise, and did not reach the bone of the man.
- The dear sons of Autolykos were busy to tend to him,
- and understandingly they bound up the wound....
- Then Autolykos and the sons of Autolykos,
- healing him well and giving him shining presents, send him
- speedily back rejoicing to his own beloved country.
- A good answer would be: Story of how Odysseus got his
scar from the boar: told as part of when Eurykleia recognized
him (by the scar, when she was washing him), which is a
"recognition scene" and occurs at ________ (describe the point
in the Odyssey/sequence of events this fits into)______."
Further short answer questions:
- On your next reading of these epics, what details would you
keep track of and why?
- A good answer will be focused, do-able, and identify an
interesting area you want to know more about.
- What evidence is there in these epics that these epics are
anti-war? What evidence is there that they are not? What
evidence is there that they are neutral on the question?
- What are some significant moral problems with the ethical
systems you see operating in these epics?