(in Polish) Sława i powrót. Antropologiczne biografie Achillesa i Odyseusza w eposie homeryckim 3700-MSK-F-SP
The course aims to familiarise students with the anthropological and culture-forming dimensions of the Homeric epics by analysing two models of heroic existence: Achilles and Odysseus. This will be achieved by taking a biographical approach, whereby the life of an individual is not treated as a personal story or a record of life events, but as a means of revealing, preserving and transmitting desired cultural, social and symbolic behaviours and traits. From this perspective, the Iliad and the Odyssey are not only masterpieces of literature, but also particular representations of pre-philosophical understandings of the human being, community, fate, death, memory, and the loss of subjectivity. Achilles' biography centres on the themes of glory, honour, a short life and the choice of death as a means to achieve immortality through one's name. By contrast, the biography of Odysseus centres on the themes of journey, survival, cunning, loss of identity, recognition and return. Odysseus is a hero whose subjectivity is shaped not by a single, defining act, but by a long process of confronting otherness, limits and change. Analysing both figures will reveal how Homeric epic formulates different scenarios of heroic life and endows them with cultural significance.
During the course, the epic genre itself will also be analysed: its origins, oral nature, and its social, culture-forming, and world-cognitive function. It is important to demonstrate that epic is a tool for transmitting cultural patterns, collective memory, social norms and axiological directives.
The focus of the reflection will be the epic form as a specific mechanism for organising human life in oral cultures, as well as the content it conveys about the relationship between the individual and the community, the body and glory, war and home, and death and memory. Particular attention will be devoted to the phenomena that shape the biographies of heroes and, consequently, the community's own biography. Glory and return will be presented not as literary tropes, but as two fundamental anthropological concepts that shape the perception of archaic life.
The lecture-seminar format is intended to engage students in analysing and interpreting the themes of the Iliad and the Odyssey discussed in class. Each topic will be assigned a set of passages from the epics to serve as a point of departure and basis for shared reflection. Reading the source text in close connection with anthropological categories will demonstrate how Homeric epics construct models of the hero, order human experience and preserve fundamental concepts of life, death, memory, home and community.