The Oral Odyssey (Blog Assignment 2)

Good afternoon/morning/evening!

I was completely fascinated with the entire progression of Homer's Illiad and Odyssey. The evolution of the story, and then the remediation of it makes perfect sense. We'll begin with the evolution: the oral story, or pieces of that story, being passed and refined from person to person. It changed and evolved as time passed and more people told the story and the poets themselves refined their story-telling technique. The evolution, I would argue, also includes the compilation of all of the little pieces of the story into the two final epics. It is an evolution, and not remediation, because the stories grew together in oral form, most likely, before they were written for the first time.

It was only eventually that the remediation occurred when one man (not to be sexist, it just would have been that way) compiled all the stories into two that we know as the Illiad and the Odyssey. This is remediation, and not an evolution, because of the compilation of all of the stories that had been passed verbally through generations into one solid text, that although reads like an oral poem, is slightly different. Over the years, the remediations of this text have continued, into illustrated stories, plays, and movies.

The discovery of this remediation by Milman Parry in the 1920s proves the difference between the evolution and the remediation, but also proves the evolution itself. This means that the fact that the story was originally oral and many different oral stories proves the evolution, while showing the written, and now visual, versions in itself proves the remediation itself. The remediation into the written version from the oral version allowed the story to continue to be heard, while many of the older oral tales died out. We are very lucky to have the original remediation in this case, or we would not have arguably the most famous story of our time.

~Meg~

"You all have to just hope that the person you're staying with isn't an axe murderer." - A Teacher about staying with strangers during the time of The Odyssey