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Pick ONE of the essay prompts below, write an essay around 10 pages. Be sure to ground your ideas and thoughts in the primary texts, Hesiod and Homer. Your secondary assigned reading will be helpful in formulating your thoughts.
1. Ancient religion often differed greatly from today, especially with regard to how people imaged the interrelationship between the gods and human beings. By way of example, reflect on the nature of one or two gods as presented in the Theogony, and illustrate how the ancient Greeks saw their interaction with them as illustrated in the stories preserved in Homer’s Odyssey and Hesiod’s Works and Days.
2. The figure Odysseus in the Odyssey is more than simply a central character, he is a commanding presence throughout the epic poem. For this essay, reflect on how you think this epic functioned for either the author(s) and/or its classical readers. Is the figure of Odysseus meant to be prospective, that is a guide to how readers and hearers of the Epic are expected to behave, or is the character descriptive of the classical hero; simply a description of heroic behavior removed from the exigencies of everyday life? What do you think readers of the text were meant to take away, or why was it important enough to preserve?
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