Reference no: EM131162124

Whenever Odysseus arrives at a new land, he asks whether its inhabitants practice good hospitality toward strangers: "In this country I have reached, what are the people like? Are they violent and wild, without a sense of justice? Or are they kind to strangers? In their minds do they fear the gods?" (Book Six, lines 85-89; very similar lines are repeated throughout the poem. See Book Eight, lines 111-114; Book Nine, lines 126-129; and Book Thirteen, lines 63-66). Odysseus's meeting with the Cyclops in Book Nine is portrayed as an encounter with bad hospitality (See especially lines 215-231), whereas his meeting with Eumaeus when he returns home in disguise is portrayed as an example of good hospitality (Book Fourteen, lines 30-44). Conversely, hospitality applies to being a good guest as well as a good host. The suitors who want to marry Penelope are portrayed as bad guests (Book One, lines 154-158; compare the incident with the Cattle of the Sun in Book Twelve.)

Analyze the portrayals of hospitality in the Odyssey. In your discussion, you might consider the following sorts of questions. (Don't try to answer them all in one post! Discuss them over the course of the whole week.) What are the fundamental qualities and practices that make someone a good or bad host/guest in the Odyssey? What does his representation of hospitality tell us about how Homer understood the human condition? Why might Homer have believed hospitality was so important? Does his viewpoint still ring true today? What might we learn from Homer's concept of hospitality?

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