Assigned reading: The Odyssey, Books 1-6
- At a Council of the gods on Mount Olympus (Book 1), Athena proposes a plan.
- Telemachus then calls a Council in Ithaca (Book 2); Penelope’s weaving strategy is discovered; Telemachus leaves Ithaca secretly to visit two war heroes.
- When Athena leaves Mount Olympus to visit Telemachus in Book 1, Hermes also departs from Olympus to go and inform the nymph Kalypso that she must release Odysseus from her island; This thematic thread I pick up in books 5 and 6.
Assigned reading: The Odyssey, Books 7-15
“The Great Travels”
- In books 7-8, Odysseus is received at the court of the Pheaecians in Scheria
- In books 9-12, he recounts his adventures during a ten-year effort to return home.
- In books13-15, Odysseus and Telemachus
Assigned reading: The Odyssey, Books 16-24
- A series of recognition scenes conclude with that of Odysseus and Penelope.
- Odysseus secretly assembles his troops.
- The suitors are defeated. Telemachus’s plea to the gods in Book 2 is resolved.
- A final vignette of the suitors in Hades, and the restoration of order in Ithaca.