The Odyssey originally composed by Homer is a staple of all English literature. The Odyssey depicts the journey of Odysseus who is trying to return home after a decade-long war against Troy. It took Odysseus ten years to make it home. Over these years Odysseus and his crew arrive at many different islands which all require Odysseus to problem-solve his way out of. Hopkins should retain The Odyssey in its English curriculum because it gives students a sense of how leaders should behave. The Odyssey also provides guidance to a stage of life that most people go through after college. It also is the ancestor to lots of literature that students will be exposed to in their academic careers. The Odyssey has always been a major point in a student's English journey and it should continue to be.
In SOAPBOX; An Odyssey By Marcia Worth-Baker, the author talks about how she read The Odyssey to her sixth-grade students. She did not dive very deep into the details that a scholar would pull from the text. However, she used the baseline story to teach her kids about how to become good leaders. Worth-Baker writes, “These students don't need me to teach the facts of the war at Troy and Odysseus' trip home; the Cliff's Notes that many of them hide unsuccessfully in their binders will explain clearly who are mortals and who are deities. What my bright students need to learn is good leadership”. Worth-Baker used each story in which Odysseus used great leadership skills to teach her middle school students how to become leaders in the real world. Leadership is an important skill because it provides a way to direct a group of people to solve a problem efficiently. This is one of the reasons The Odyssey should continue to be taught at Hopkins.
In The Odyssey Years by David Brooks, the author writes about how active and post-college kids go through a phase in their lives that they mimic the journey of The Odyssey. Brooks describes how after graduating high school people tend to go on a journey mentally and physically just as Odysseus did. Brooks writes, “During this decade, 20-somethings go to school and take breaks from school. They live with friends and they live at home. They fall in and out of love. They try one career and then try another”. The Odyssey offers guidance to this phase of life which is becoming more and more common as well as gives foresight on what will come in the future for some students. Hopkins should keep The Odyssey in the curriculum because it allows students to understand a phase they will go through.
In A Long, Strange Trip By Steve Coates, the author writes about how The Odyssey is the father of many modern literary themes and plotlines. Coates describes the idea about how The Odyssey laid the groundwork for all contemporary travel stories. Coates writes, “Of course, the “Odyssey” is the ancestor of all Western road novels. Hall quotes Northrop Frye: “Of all fictions, the marvelous journey is the one formula that is never exhausted.” Once that journey turns inward, the “Odyssey” offers infinite possibilities for Jungian-style analysis”. Coates also writes that The Odyssey is the model for other storylines as well. He writes, “And as an idiosyncratic domestic drama, it provides the archetypes for “the returning wanderer, the waiting woman and the fatherless child.”. Coates also demonstrates countless other explanations of how multiple aspects of The Odyssey can be interpreted. The Odyssey is a part of the Hopkins English curriculum because it pioneered a storyline for all journey stories to come.
The Odyssey should remain a book that all freshmen are required to read for three reasons; At its base level, it teaches leadership skills that even 6th-graders can interpret, the journey that Odysseus takes on The Odyssey is very similar to the journey that students may experience after graduating from high school, and The Odyssey is the skeleton of all modern travel journeys as well as the contemporary story of growing up without a father. For all of these reasons, The Odyssey is an excellent book that should forever be taught at Hopkins if not to all high school students.