Who Wins the Odyssey?

A FREE PUBLIC LECTURE

Sunday, September 18th at noon EST

with Mark Buchan

The Odyssey is a competition. Not only are all the main actors trying to win, they're also manipulating the rules of the assorted contests to help them win. But this begs the question: who does win? Looking in particular at the bow contest and its bloody aftermath, in this talk I'll argue that finding a winner isn't as simple as it seems. In passing, I'll also show how Emily Wilson's recent translation of the poem makes it much harder to work out who the true winner might be. So bring your best guesses (Odysseus? Telemachus? Penelope? The suitors?) and we'll fight (peacefully) over who comes out on top.

About our Speaker

Mark Buchan is the author of Perfidy and Passion and The Limits of Heroism, and is also a columnist for Paideia's online magazine, In Medias Res. He teaches writing at Rutgers University.