Myth In Ostriker's Circe/Mud Poems

Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles completely illustrate Odysseus’s journey home after The Trojan War. Separated into twenty-four different books, the poem describes the hardships Odysseus faces and how he overcomes obstacles. Though this poem is composed for listeners and may seem incomprehensible, Homer includes a plethora of literary devices to help audiences better understand, follow, and enjoy the context of The Odyssey. Throughout this poem instances of epic simile, foreshadowing, epithet, and xenia are included to help the poem flow.

      Circe and Calypso, while very tricky and sly, are still very strong feminine characters.  Circe takes Odysseus' crew and turns them into swine; when Odysseus is able to resist her spell, due to the Moly he had been given by Hermes, she is dismayed and takes him as her lover. She is mysterious and seductive and is strong even up against Odysseus.  Calypso is a sea nymph who keeps Odysseus captive for nine years, hoping to make him her husband.  She is a strong-willed temptress whose sultry ways are able to reel in even the most determined man.

After centuries of serving as background noise to her husband Ulysses’ odes of sea storms, sirens, and celebrity, the mythological Penelope finally steps into the light in Miriam Waddington’s poem “Ulysses Embroidered” (1992). Functioning as a revisionary text to both the Alfred, Lord Tennyson work “Ulysses” (1833) and The Odyssey itself, “Ulysses Embroidered” quickly strikes its readers as a fiercely feminist re-envisioning of Penelope and her tale. Waddington’s work permits an age-old legend to be told in a bold new way with a female lead, but to what end does the feminist adjustment remark on Tennyson’s work? By both reading against the grain and “constantly [engaging] in

I will argue that we may view the woman as representative of Odysseus’ grief in his moment of pity and pain, the simile in its entirety may be regarded as analogous to a potential future for his own oikos. Should he fail to return home or succeed to return only to deceit and demise, Odysseus will initiate the splintering of his home into the rabid hands of the suitors. The simile shifts from referring solely to Odysseus to encompass the possible fate of his entire household. This promotes the idea that this hero reaps what he sows for, as the perpetrator of like monstrosity, he faces the tragedy of a future akin to that of his own surviving victims.

There are 7.442 billion people in the world and each individual person has their own unique personality and effect on the world around them. In Homer’s The Odyssey multiple characters are introduced that change the story in their own way. How each character acts is determined by the character traits that drive who they are and what they want the outcome of Odysseus’ journey to be. Circe, a goddess who lives on an island alone, influences the plot more than most of the other characters in the novel, altering the way one views the other characters and changing the way they feel. Circe’s character traits and the overall revolutionary idea that Circe is a women changes the way readers view the novel and thus, changing the overall reaction readers have to The Odyssey.

Circe gives Odysseus a golden cup of honeyed wine for when Odysseus does not turn into an animal Circe, knows that he is Odysseus. Circe helps Odysseus and his men by telling Odysseus the dangers of their journey ahead. Circe says, "Son of Laertes and the gods of old, Odysseus, master, mariner, and soldier, you shall not stay here longer against your will; but the home you may not unless you take a strange way round and come to the cold homes of Death and pale Persephone. You shall hear prophecy from the rapt shade of blind Tiresias of Thebes, forever charged with reason even among the dead; to him alone, of all the flitting ghosts, Persephone has given a mind undarkened" (Applebee et.al 925). In conclusion, Circe is an archetypal hero because she gives Odysseus advice and aids him to Persephone who tells him how to return to

Odysseus’s weakest relationship is with Circe, the beautiful goddess of enchantment, the love in the relationship is based on respect and infatuation, this is shown before they meet and when Odysseus decides to leave back to Ithaka. Before they meet,

Yet, it is true, each day I long for home, long for the sight of home” He was also tempted with a beautiful mortal Nausicaa who is princess of the was looking for a husband. Evidence of this can be found on page 741 line 570-571 “ I wish my husband could be fine as he and glad to stay forever on Scheria”. Odysseus is loyal to his god or gods. As he does what Tireces tells him and does not eat Helios cows an example of this can be found on page 761 line 1115-1120 “ But if you raid the beeves, i see destruction for ships and crew. Though you survive alone, bereft of all companions, lost for years, under strange sail shall you come home, to find you own house filled with trouble, insolent men eating your livestock as they court your lady “. Odysseus eats the antidot that Hermie’s gives him so he does not fall under Circe’s spell, evidence of this can be found on page 758 in the italicized text. Odysseus leaves the ship and rushes to Circe’s hall. “The god Hermes stops him to give him a plant that will act as an antidote to Circe’s power.” Odysseus also follows Circe’s instructions on what rights he must perform to bring out the dead, evidence of this can be found on page 760

Both Odysseus and Rainsford go through life or death experiences and come out alive, but how did they both do it? In The Odyssey, Odysseus faces many obstacles that he has to overcome in order to make it back home to his friends and family stationed in his homeland, Ithaca. In “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, Sanger Rainsford is hunted by General Zaroff and has to use whatever means possible to win the game. Odysseus and Rainsford come out alive in the end because they share similar traits. For example, they show great self-discipline and they know how to use their wits.

In Homer’s Odyssey women are responsible for many of the problems that Odysseus faced during his journey back to Ithaca. This essay will analyse how far women were responsible and also compare it to far other things caused problems for Odysseus.

The islands of Circe and Calypso in Homer’s Odyssey are places where Odysseus’ most challenging problems occur. In contrast to battles with men, Cyclops, or animals, sexual battles with women are sometimes much more difficult to win. These two female characters are especially enticing to Odysseus because they are goddesses. Though it is evident that Odysseus longs to return to Penelope in Ithaka, it sometimes appears that he has lost vision of what life was like with a wife, a son, and with thousands of people who regard him as King. Although his experiences on the islands of these goddesses were similar in that he was retained from Ithaka for the longest periods of his adventure, these goddesses and the

Women are portrayed as seductresses. Odysseus and his crew arrive on the island of Circe, lured in by the sound of her voice. Homer describes her as "Low she sang/ in her beguiling voice,

After the encounters with the Sirens, Odysseus had to face a terrifying creature that he feared of. Circe warned Odysseus about the dangers of Scylla. He is informed that she will snag six of his men and tells him that it is much better than loosing everyone. “Nobody would feel good seeing her, not even a god who crossed her path. She has a dozen feet all deformed, six enormously long necks, with a horrible head on each of them and three rows of teeth packed closed together, full of murky death” (Steele and Alwa, 489). Odysseus knew that in order for his survival and to be able to get to the island, he had to sacrifice his men and escape this monster. “Monsters such as the Sphinx are often represented as female, as if to imply that women are on the borderline between human and “other” than human”(Steele and Alwa, 41). Odysseus also had to deal with his love affair with the witch goddess, Circe. She lived with nymphs on a mythical island. She changed all of Odysseus’s men into animals when he showed up to see her. Hermes helped Odysseus remove the men from the spell. “Many men appear to have felt that they could truly not love women who were not educated well enough to read, write, or engage in informed dialogue with their husbands”(Steele and Alwa, 43). The love between Odysseus and Circe failed due to her lack of ability to engage with men, by

Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey follows Odysseus on his long journey home. The Epic also includes the stories of Odysseus’ family left behind: the travels of his son, Telemachus, and how plenty, of what we would now call “home wreckers”, suitors pressured his wife, Penelope, into marrying one of them. The characters are beautifully crafted and the story is truly epic. All the elements presented can bring in any reader from any century, the Cyclops, the Gods, the trickery of Penelope, and the disguises of Odysseus, are all legendary literary hooks . There are many things to learn—about writing, about the world around us, the world ahead of us, and the past behind us—from The Odyssey. (26) It is undeniably evident that this ancient text has

Circe, a powerful sorceress, shows her strength by being in control. Whenever Circe turns Odysseus’s men into pigs she shows her strength by overpowering them. Odysseus’s men underestimate Circe for the powerful sorceress she is because she is a woman. Because they do so, they are turned into pigs.