Alexander T. K. Elnabli
Excerpt from Homer’s Odyssey: The Sirens
Homer’s Odyssey provides a dizzying array of stories and Greek mythological figures which have been alluded to in the English-language tradition as well as in various art forms for centuries. In order to make time for at least three text sets this unit, I will specifically use the excerpt describing Odysseus’s encounter with the Sirens. In the passage, Odysseus’s journey brings him and his men on a dangerous path in which female, bird-like monsters lure sailors to their death with a beautiful song. Odysseus has his men tie him to the ship and plug his ears while rowing swiftly on in order to protect him from temptation and death.
This passage is valuable as the “siren’s song” remains an idiom in modern English that refers to dangerous temptation. Further, though the Odyssey has no historical connection to the Old Testament, a common motif of the dangers of “temptation” are explored here just as they are in Genesis, which students studied earlier. This provides an opportunity to draw a thread between texts across time and geography that explore related themes when answering the question of what it means to be human. Here we are preparing students to engage in humanistic inquiry and to recognize the connections between myths and spiritual stories while not discarding their differences.
As this is an excerpt from the middle of the text, teachers should provide a background summary on the epic poem and the character of Odysseus as a Do Now task before having students launch into the close reading cycle.
“Siren Song,” Margaret Atwood
Atwood’s poem provides a wonderful twist in its allusion to the Odyssey’s myth of the Sirens. The speaker of this poem seems to be herself a Siren, reflecting on the power of her song and admitting that it is boring and that she wants off the island. The poem is a welcome addition to the unit because it provides a feminist critique of the sexist association of deadly temptation with women as Sirens. Further, given that this same association is made between the woman, Eve, and persuading Adam to eat the fruit that leads to the fall, there is an opportunity to have students reflect on how allusion in the humanities carries implicit associations which we may be able to challenge and reverse through art. Having students reflect on their own assumptions, the textual threads that inform our stories and language that create those assumptions, and how we can use art and conscious reflection on it in the humanities to reverse these assumptions would be a powerful outcome of this text set study. Further, Atwood’s poem offers another opportunity for students to practice the Three-Reads method for close reading poetry described in Activity 1 above.
In order to generate interest and provide student practice at literally comprehending non-fiction texts in keeping with the Common Core standard informing this unit, teachers should provide a biographic sketch of Atwood as a Do Now task before launching into the close reading of the poem.
