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Welcome
to "Homeric Odyssey and the Cultivation of
Justice", an online lecture series organized and
led by Professor Gregory Nagy, the current director
of Harvard University's Center
for Hellenic
Studies
in Washington, D. C. In the creation of this
project he has been actively assisted by Teaching
Fellows who have taught with him the undergraduate
Core Curriculum course "The Concept of the Hero in
Greek Civilization." "Homeric Odyssey and the
Cultivation of Justice" is an exploration of the
Homeric Odyssey, with a particular emphasis
on the heroic search for the goal of social
justice. In the poetic imagination, this goal is
pictured through the metaphor of a beautifully
cultivated garden. Homeric poetry links this
paradisiacal metaphor with the hero's efforts to
win back his or her own "soul" (psyche). The
Odyssey itself is such a heroic journey of a
soul.
In ancient Greek
song culture, as exemplified by the Odyssey,
the goal of such a heroic quest is imagined as a
garden fertilized and even animated by the hero
whose body is ultimately buried within its hallowed
ground. This image is directly linked to the
historical fact that heroes were not only the
subject of song in the ancient Greek world but also
objects of religious cult.
The cult heroes
of the ancient Greeks were believed to be upholders
of social justice precisely because their bodies
were buried in the local earth of the communities
that worshipped them as the direct source of
fertility and prosperity. The image of the
paradisiacal garden is the eventual outcome in
stories of a hero's immortalization in song. The
Odyssey is such a story, and Odysseus is
such a hero.
The series
consists of four units, and features reading of the
Homeric Odyssey (in the beautiful English
translation of Samuel Butler), lectures by the
professor and teaching fellows [through
RealVideo], other video materials and
dialogues, and questions to consider as you
read.Previous experience with ancient Greek
Literature is emphatically not required, and
new-comers to Homer are heartily encouraged to
explore this site! There are no prerequisites for
this series, and all materials are available in
English over the internet. To repeat, knowledge of
Greek is not required. The first
unit is
here.
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