Memory And Memorialization In Homer's Odyssey

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Dichen Choden Bhutia
Mr. Bodh Prakash
MA English
Classical Greek Literature
4th Semester
22nd February 2017

Comment on the centrality of the memory and memorialization in Homer’s Odyssey.

Memory is our capacity to store, carry, and remember the past encounters and events in the human mind. It can be considered as the utilization of past experience to influence or impact current conduct. Memory is the result of what we recall, and gives us the capacity to take in and adjust from past encounters and also to put together connections. It is already learned facts, encounters, impressions, abilities and art and mannerisms. It is the store of the things learned and held from our action or experience, as proven by transformation of structure …show more content…

We can discover cases of this sort of recalling in the Odyssey in such settings as, firstly, when Odysseus, his child Telemakhos, and Eumaios "they both remembered their bed and took the gift of sleep” that is, they go to bed. the Phaeacians pour the last libation to Hermes. Besides, when Eurymakhos urges his co-suitors to battle Odysseus in the palace, and he does this by saying, “let us remember the lust of battle”, this recollecting is not about reviewing something in the past, but rather of encountering, and effectively doing, something in the present (and furthermore Odyssey, Aigisthos has a guard set up on the off chance that Agamemnon recalls the shield of battle, that is, sets up a battle). Also, thirdly, when Odysseus reassures his men after their experience with the Cyclops and says “let us remember food and not be worn out by hunger” — here it is obviously not a matter of basic recalling (which would even now prompt to starvation), however of making a particular course of move, planning and eating nourishment, that is included ot recalling sustenance measures up to skipping a …show more content…

A typical situation in the Odyssey for this sort of recollecting is with regards of prayers and, among people, appeals to, for example, host 's consideration: a suppliant requests to recall a prior favor, and recollecting this, it is suggested, will bring about the response of that support as is fitting. For instance, when Penelope discovers that Telemakhos has left for Pylos and Sparta and that the suitors are plotting to kill him on his way back, she prays to Athena. In an appeal to God, the prior favor is usually a sacrifice. In between human relations, we discover references to prior hospitality or kept promises, as with Telemakhos ' appeal to Nestor for any kind of information about his