Daniel Mendelsohn
speaker
599 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Jul 2026
last heard 16 Jul
Daniel Mendelsohn’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
Trend
recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.
Appearances
are actually
The Olympian gods, you know, the twelve major gods, are actually mostly absent from the action.
In a way that is the opposite almost to the way that they function in the Iliad.
Those of your listeners who are familiar with the Iliad will know that the gods play a
Absolutely concrete role in the action of the poem.
They're on the battlefield, they're fighting with their favorite heroes, they're interfering with the goings-on in a very hands-on way.
They show up, they stop people from doing things, they stop their favorite heroes from making mistakes, they fight with each other on the battlefield in full armor.
You know, they're really as present as the human.
Human characters.
In the Odyssey, which is a post war epic, and I want to underscore
The
The extent to which the Odysse there is a a sort of aura of postness about the Odyssey one feels from the very start that the grand glory days are coming to an end and the gods have somehow withdrawn.
You really feel that in the Odyssey.
Now of course there are supernatural
characters, nymphs and
you know, the the winds, the god of the winds and these fabulous monsters, the Cyclops, Skilla, Charibda.
But the only God
Who
Really?
heavily intervenes in the action and that's not really until the very end of the poem.
Showing 341–360 of 599 · page 18 of 30
← Previous
Next →