In Medias Res

"In medias res, also medias in res, (Latin for "into the middle of things") is a literary and artistic technique where the narrative starts in the middle of the story instead of from its beginning. The characters, setting, and conflict are often introduced through a series of flashbacks or through characters relating past events to each other. Probably originating from an oral tradition, the technique was established in the 8th century BC in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and became a convention of epic poetry." (I copied this from wikipedia)

I find the first five books of The Odyssey kind of boring. The action really picks up when we finally encounter Odysseus. When we do, we are told of Odysseus' many travails on his journey home from Troy. When we finally experience his cunning when dealing with Polyphemus, the evil cyclops, then we know we are in for an adventurous tale. Many other epic poems imitate Homer's use of in media res, and in effect establish this technique as a tradition. Just one of the technical things you should know about an epic poem.

Of course I will add some posts about the first five books.

For Starters

I copied some of this post from Ms. Higgins in 2009.

Greetings and Salutations!

I don't know about the rest of you, but I find that when I am faced with reading something new and unfamiliar to me, I like to know a little bit about the plot before I delve into the meat and potatoes of the book. Since we have all used Codes of Comprehension for Fiction, you all understand that plot is just the surface of most works -- simply, it is "what happens." While we will be reading The Odyssey to understand the plot, there is much more to this classic work that begs to be explored. For those of you who may find it helpful, there's a book-by-book (that's like chapters or parts) summary of the storyline on the following website:

http://www.mythweb.com/odyssey/background_s.html

Poetic meter refers to the rhythm of a poem. Poems consist of words that have a series of stressed and unstressed syllables, and these patterns create meter. Here is an excellent lesson on poetic meter that everyone should read:

http://faculty.nwacc.edu/ljlovell/Powerpoints/meternew.ppt

Please leave as many comments and ask as many questions as you can! That is the best part of the blog.

Mr. Matluck