Odysseus as an epic hero

On Tuesday 4^th November there was a plentiful crowd gathered in the ALT awaiting the arrival of Adrian Kelly, the lecturer for the day, who came with a powerful accent with its origin being Australia. He is a Greek fellow at Balliol College, Oxford and winner of the Best Lecturer Award in 2012. The lecture itself was on ‘Odysseus as an epic hero.’ At first with his more formal and surprising pronunciation of Odysseus and Achilles, most of the audience were baffled, but soon we were all invigorated by the words flowing from his mouth. This was a lecture that sparked the imagination of all who listened, for it opened up a new avenue of knowledge and interest that I (for one) had never realised before. The lecture shone a light magnanimity on Odysseus but also simultaneously showed his darker and, arguably, less visible side. At first there was a minor comparison of Achilles and Odysseus, but it soon separated into two streams of thought. This was an eye-opening lecture that provoked many a thought and formed new thoughts full of intrigue in our heads, as we realised there was lot more to Homer’s famous poems than it seemed.