Thursday, March 8, 2007

Odyssey....

.... is a very famous Greek Novel written by "Homer" of The Illiad fame and am sure all of us would have heard of this at some point or the other in life. I got to read an abridged version of this novel few days back... as part of the course work of "Leadership Lessons through world literature" - a course that i have opted for in this term. I am glad that I chose this course coz Prof. Rajeshwar Upadhyay is just AWESOME!!!!!!!!! The amount of knowledge that he has and the kind of parallels that he draws while talking about each of these literary works, is way beyond commendation! Through this course we get to read some of the great works written in ancient times and draw some leadership lessons through the characters involved. Some of the books included are Ramayana, Odyssey, Oedipus Rex, Abhijnana Shakuntalam, Don Quixote, Julius Ceaser, Zarathustra.. et al. I am glad that at least now I am getting to read some ancient mythology :)

The recent reads were Odyssey and a play called Oedipus Rex by Sophocles. Odyssey has a modern flair to it and a complex but interesting plot structure. Oedipus Rex is a story entirely about fate. In this play, according to fate Oedipus would kill his father and marry his mother. Oedipus gets to know about this and tries his best to not let this happen.....without realizing that every action of his is getting him entagled in the meshes of fate! Very well written...

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