Classics brought to life at Grand Valley

An invocation of a “rosy-fingered dawn,” a noontime celebratory discus throw and a spirited reading of the encounter with the Cyclops Polyphemus are all part of Homerathon Reloaded at Grand Valley State University's Allendale Campus.

On Friday, October 17, from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., the Department of Classics will present an epic full-day performance of Homer's "Odyssey" in the Kirkhof Center Lounge, with an ongoing rotation of student, faculty and staff readers, including special guest Stanley Lombardo. The event is free and open to the public.

“Reloaded” is the second Homerathon event, reprising the successful daylong performance last year of Homer’s epic poem, “The Iliad.” While hundreds of Grand Valley students study the Homeric epics every year, the Homerathons offer an unparalleled opportunity for everyone to experience the poems in an approximation of the circumstances in which they were originally performed.

“It is Homer’s Odysseus himself who declares, ‘What could be finer / Than listening to a singer of tales?” said Classics Department Chair Charles Pazdernik. “People have been retelling these ‘tales’ for thousands of years, and the Homerathon is now becoming a campus-wide tradition that reaffirms the centrality and relevance of the Greco-Roman classics in the liberal arts and demonstrates their vitality at Grand Valley.”

 “The Odyssey” follows the wanderings and bloody homecoming of the hero Odysseus over the course of 10 years following the Greek conquest of the city of Troy in the Trojan War. Acclaimed poet and translator Stanley Lombardo will reprise his appearance in the original Homerathon. He returns to the Cook-DeWitt Center at 1 p.m., to perform selections from his own celebrated translation of the "Odyssey.” Lombardo is a professor of Classics and director of the University Honors program at the University of Kansas.

For more information and a complete schedule visit www.gvsu.edu/classics .