Reassurance and Doubt in Homer’s Odyssey: Narrative Suspense as Compositional Tool

K. Paul Bednarowski

doi:10.25162/hermes-2023-0001

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Reassurance and Doubt in Homer’s Odyssey

Narrative Suspense as Compositional Tool

Bednarowski, K. Paul

From the journal Hermes Hermes, Volume 151, March 2023, issue 1

Published by Franz Steiner Verlag

article, 11150 Words
Original language: English
Hermes 2023, pp 3-22
https://doi.org/10.25162/hermes-2023-0001

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Abstract

Our Odyssey is shaped by oral poetics but also by storytelling techniques developed to attract and hold audiences’ attention. From Odysseus’s first appearance, episodes consistently bring to mind his revenge plot against the suitors and test the qualities and skills he will need to carry it out. These episodes offer reassuring evidence that Odysseus will defeat the suitors balanced by doubt-inducing signs that he will fail. Taken together, these episodes elicit hope and fear, the constituent elements of suspense, regarding Odysseus’s chances of succeeding. The consistency with which these episodes appear and the balance they strike between reassurance and doubt suggest that the generation of suspense played a significant role in the composition of the Odyssey as we have it.

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K. Paul Bednarowski

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References

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