I idly pay a small fraction of my attention to tonight’s “Angel” episode – something about a Nazi sub during WWII (how early did that term originate: “WWII”? before the end of the war, even?). And I think, these are the descendands of Homer and the Odyssey.
“Eeeeeeek!” you say. Or something more forceful yet less printable. “How dare you?” you ask me. “How can you equate one of the greatest writers of all time with trivial television episodes?” If you calm down, I’ll tell you.
Homer told stories. It took a long time for these stories to gel into what the consensus said were the “real” Odyssey and Iliad – several centuries, in fact. Do you really think the Greek people had pre-ordained scripts to read from, when they recounted the tales to each other? No. The stories morphed over time, however well they may have adhered to Homer’s original notions. Children played Greeks vs. Trojans, taking turns to be Achilles or Hercules. Variations spun off, here and there.
The Greeks themselves, and their wonderful language, turned Homer’s stories into the wonders that they have been, and continue to be, as much as Homer’s genius is responsible.
After all, it wasn’t just Homer who is responsible for the stories…. the Greek people, whose memory carried the stories on through an oral tradition before they were first written down, hold an equal share of responsibility.
So now, after all that, I’m going to go watch Todd TV. Go figure.
white pebble 