CLA 81 — Women and Power in Homer’s Odyssey
Quarter: Spring
Instructor(s): Barbara Clayton
Date(s): Apr 2—May 7
Class Recording Available: No
Class Meeting Day: Wednesdays
Class Meeting Time: 6:30—8:20 pm (PT)
Tuition: $405
Refund Deadline: Apr 4
Unit(s): 1
Status: Registration opens Feb 24, 8:30 am (PT)
Quarter: Spring
Day: Wednesdays
Duration: 6 weeks
Time: 6:30—8:20 pm (PT)
Date(s): Apr 2—May 7
Unit(s): 1
Tuition: $405
Refund Deadline: Apr 4
Instructor(s): Barbara Clayton
Recording Available: No
Status: Registration opens Feb 24, 8:30 am (PT)
Is the Odyssey a “ladies’ book”? Eighteenth-century philologist Richard Bentley thought so, declaring that Homer wrote the Iliad “for the men” and the Odyssey “for the other sex.” Although they share many traits, the two epics fall naturally into a pair of contrasting opposites: the Iliad is a tale of war with a tragic outcome, featuring a cast of characters almost exclusively male, while the Odyssey offers a hard-won vision of peace, a happy ending, and formidable female characters. In this course, we will read the Odyssey in Emily Wilson’s excellent translation, with the aim of paying attention to the poem’s strong feminine component. We will explore what its female characters have in common and how they function as both foil and mirror for Odysseus. We will also consider how Athena and Penelope, the poem’s two masterful weavers, embody a distinctly feminine creativity—what we might call a “Penelopean poetics”—as they navigate challenges and shape outcomes, offering insight into the timeless allure of Homer’s epic.
BARBARA CLAYTON
Independent Scholar
Barbara Clayton has taught Classics at Oberlin College, Santa Clara University, and Stanford, where she was a lecturer in a freshman humanities program for many years. Since 2015, she has taught for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute. She is the author of A Penelopean Poetics: Reweaving the Feminine in Homer’s Odyssey. Clayton received a PhD in Classics from Stanford. Textbooks for this course:
(Required) Homer, Emily Wilson (trans.), The Odyssey (ISBN 978-0393356250)