The Odyssey Study Guide
Answer these questions as you read.
Book I
- Where is Odysseus in this book?
- How is Athena disguised?
- Why do Penelope and Telemachus need Odysseus?
- Why does Penelope have suitors?
- What advice does Athena give to Telemachus?
Lesson 40: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book II
- What trick does Penelope play on her suitors?
- How does Athena help Telemachus?
Lesson 41: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book III
- How does Nestor feel about Odysseus?
- How does Nestor react when he realizes Athena is Telemachus’ companion?
Lesson 42: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions while you read.
Book IV
- How do Helen and Menelaus realize Telemachus is Odysseus’ son?
- How does Menelaus feel about Odysseus?
- How does Antinous plan to destroy Telemachus?
Lesson 43: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions while you read.
Book V
- Who does Zeus send to Calypso?
- What is Hermes sent to do?
- What can Hermes do with his wand?
- How does Calypso feel about Hermes’ message?
- What happens when Odysseus leaves?
- What happens at the end of this book?
Lesson 44: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book VI
- What does Athena influence Nausicaa to do while she sleeps?
- What wakes Odysseus?
- Why doesn’t Nausicaa run away from Odysseus like the other girls?
- What does Athena do for Odysseus after he bathes?
- Why does Nausicaa make Odysseus follow behind the wagon?
- What does Nausicaa tell Odysseus to do if he wants her father’s help?
Lesson 45: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book VII
- What are the Phaeacians best known for?
- How do they treat Odysseus?
Lesson 46: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book VIII
- What activities does King Alcinous use to entertain Odysseus?
- Who is Demodocus?
- How does King Alcinous help Odysseus?
- How does Odysseus react when Demodocus sings about the Trojan War?
Lesson 47: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book IX
- What happened to someone who ate of the lotus?
- How heavy was the door of the Cyclops’ cave?
- What does the Cyclops do instead of answering Odysseus?
- Why doesn’t Odysseus kill the Cyclops?
- What gift does Odysseus give the Cyclops?
- What “present” does the Cyclops offer in return?
- How do the men sneak out of the cave?
(continued on next page)
Lesson 47: The Odyssey Study Guide (cont.) Lit & Comp II LA
- What does Odysseus do after he escapes and returns to his ship?
- How does the Cyclops respond?
- What did a prophet once prophesy about the Cyclops?
- What does the Cyclops ask of his father Poseidon?
Lesson 48: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book X
- Who is the god of wind?
- What favor does he do for Odysseus?
- What do some of the men do that undoes what Aeolus had done for them?
- What did the Laestrygonians do?
- What did Circe do to some of the men?
- Where does Circe send Odysseus?
Lesson 49: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XI
- How does Odysseus call the souls of the dead to himself?
- Who is Teiresias?
- What does Odysseus want from Teiresias?
- What does Teiresias tell Odysseus about his fate?
- What should Odysseus do to the suitors?
- With whom does Teiresias say Odysseus should make peace?
- How did Odysseus’s mother die?
Lesson 50: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XII
- What happens to those who hear the song of the Sirens?
- What does Circe instruct Odysseus to do to avoid hearing the Sirens?
- How does Circe describe Scylla?
- Why does Odysseus need to avoid Charybdis?
- What did Odysseus not tell his men, for fear they would quit rowing?
- What happened to Odysseus’s men at the end of Book XII?
Lesson 51: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XIII
- How was Odysseus’s journey home from Scheria?
- What does Poseidon want to do to the Phaeacian ship?
- What does Alcinous decide because of Poseidon’s wrath?
- Why does Athena want to disguise Odysseus?
- What does Athena tell Odysseus to do now that he has returned to Ithaca?
Lesson 52: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XIV
- What is the swineherd’s name?
- What does the disguised Odysseus tell the swineherd about himself?
- How is Odysseus disguised?
Lesson 53: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XV
- How has Eumaeus proven his faithfulness in this and previous books?
- Who do you think will be the first person to know Odysseus for whom he really is?
Lesson 54: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XVI
- What does Telemachus call Eumaeus?
- What does Athena do for Odysseus’s appearance?
- What does Telemachus think when Odysseus comes back in and his disguise is removed?
- What do Odysseus and Telemachus plan to do?
Lesson 55: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XVII
- What does Telemachus tell Penelope to do when she sees that he has returned?
- What does Theoclymenus prophesy to Penelope?
- Who recognizes Odysseus immediately?
- Who angers Odysseus?
- Why doesn’t Odysseus tell his servants and wife who he is right away?
Lesson 56: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XVIII
- Why does Odysseus fight Irus?
- What does Penelope trick the suitors into giving her?
- Other than Irus at the beginning, what other two characters anger Odysseus in this book?
Lesson 57: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XIX
- Disguised as the beggar, what does Odysseus tell Penelope about her husband?
- How does Euryclea recognize Odysseus?
- What happened to Odysseus that left him with a scar on his leg?
- What is the tournament of axes?
Lesson 58: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XX
- Which two characters in this book treat Odysseus poorly because he is a beggar?
- Who, in contrast, is kind to Odysseus the beggar?
- What do you think Odysseus is going to do to the suitors?
Lesson 59: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XXI
- To whom does Odysseus reveal himself to get help in defeating the suitors?
- Why do the suitors become very angry when Odysseus asks for a turn to try to string the bow?
- How is the beggar finally revealed to be Odysseus?
Lesson 60: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XXII
- Whom does Odysseus kill first? Why do you think he chose him?
- What does Eurymachus claim once he realizes who Odysseus really is?
- Who is caught taking weapons from the storeroom? What happens to him?
- Which servant begs to be spared? What second servant does Telemachus say should also be spared?
- How does Odysseus figure out which of the maids have misconducted themselves?
- What does Odysseus do to the unfaithful maids?
- What happens to Melanthius?
Lesson 61: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XXIII
- How does Penelope test Odysseus to make sure it’s him?
- Why does Penelope test Odysseus?
- What is the last task that Teiresias told Odysseus to complete? What will be his reward?
- What does Odysseus leave to do? What does he tell Penelope to do?
Lesson 62: The Odyssey Study Guide Lit & Comp II LA
Answer these questions as you read.
Book XXIV
- How does Odysseus prove his identity to Laertes?
- What is Laertes afraid will happen?
- Who comes to get revenge on Odysseus?
- Whom does Laertes kill?
- Who stops the battle?