The Cartography of Power in Greek Epic: Homer's Odyssey & The Reception of Homeric Geographies in the Hellenistic and Imperial Periods
Open Access
Author:
Skoutelas, Charissa Martha
Area of Honors:
Classics and Ancient Mediterranean Studies
Degree:
Bachelor of Arts
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Anna Irene Peterson, Thesis Supervisor Erin Mc Kenna Hanses, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
Homer Ancient Greek epic cartography geography power Odyssey Argonautica Dionysius Periegesis threshold gender class reception space place
Abstract:
As modern scholarship has transitioned from analyzing literature in terms of its temporal components towards a focus on narrative spaces, scholars like Alex Purves and Donald Lateiner have applied this framework also to ancient Greek literature. Homer’s Odyssey provides a critical recipient for such inquiry, and Purves has explored the construction of space in the poem with relation to its implications on Greek epic as a genre. This paper seeks to expand upon the spatial discourse on Homer’s Odyssey by pinpointing the modern geographic concept of power, tracing a term inspired by Michael Foucault, or a “cartography of power,” in the poem. In Chapter 2 I employ a narratological approach to examine power dynamics played out over specific spaces of Odysseus’ wanderings, and then on Ithaca, analyzing the intersection of space, power, knowledge, and deception. The second half of this chapter discusses the threshold of Odysseus’ palace and flows of power across spheres of gender and class. In Chapter 3, following the model put forth in the previous chapter, I address the question of Hellenistic reception of Homeric geographies through an analysis of Apollonius’ Argonautica. Finally, in Chapter 4, I reflect on Dionysius of Alexandria’s Periegesis of the Known World from the Imperial period as a response to Homer’s and Apollonius’ epic geographies. In this chapter I first address Homeric reception in the imperial period and within the Second Sophistic and then transition to an analysis of references to locations of the Odyssey in Dionysius’s descriptive poem.