Week 14 Lab

Man it's been a wild ride this whole semester. I am adding one more story to my storybook before I go though! I will end it with Patrick reaching his home. I'm going to reread Fagles's version of Odysseus's encounter with his father and skip a few scenes to when he cleans out the suitors from his house. The story will be the end of the 'nostos' journey and will focus on how he achieves that in 3 distinct scenes: The scene with his nurse who recognized Patrick's scar, the scene with his father who was crying and beat himself up, and the scene with his wife as they recognized and tested him over the source of the tree bed!

Bibliography:
The Odyssey translated by Robert Fagles

the nurse recognizes and realizes it is Odysseus

week 12 lab

I did some research on Odysseus trip into the underworld. There he met Tiresius and Achilles. My next storybook addition will include Odysseus's encounter with Achilles. The reason why this ties in well with nostos is because Achilles, unlike Odysseus, chose Kleos as his theme. The thought to be forever remembered in the books, despite losing his life, was his virtue. However, upon meeting Odysseus, all Achilles could say was basically if he could do it all over again, he would have chosen a regular life and lived instead of only being remembered and dead. The theme relates very well with Nostos as Achilles is the antithesis of this. Unlike Odysseus who will eventually have his reunion, Achilles will never experience that again.

Achilles

Bibliography:
The Odyssey Robert Fagles

Week 10 Lab

I watched the crash course videos over mythology. Those videos are so good and entertaining. My favorite section was the discussion of Joseph Campbell's "Hero's journey." My storybook is on the nostos of The Odyssey so it's really neat learning about the end of the hero's journey. It is also interesting to note how he synthesized Freud and other psychologist's views on myths and the subconscious to interpret what myths mean to us. I never realized that so much of how I view these influential texts are influenced by Campbell's idea of the hero's journey. I often find myself relating to so many stories and it's because I can see myself in them or learning some type of lesson from them. It never occurred to me that the psychological viewing of oneself in those myths is a relatively new idea in the myth world.

Link: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrWYQjLLbXcigjUCnKKR86F5zrcQqfiP-

hero's journey