This is from last year's Ropes course (yes I managed to write about Homer in a class about post 9/11 lit) and is some of my more turgid prose. The known-new contract was particularly useful in helping me decide where to end sentences (at one new point, not after several). Also really useful were the it/what clefts, which helped to emphasize the most important bits. I also made more of an effort to repeat key terms.

Original passage:
Odysseus has many honorifics in Homeric verse: “many-minded,” “much-enduring,” “cunning,” “resourceful,” “great-hearted,” but one of the least common, and most interesting, especially considering where it appears in the Odyssey, is “sacker of cities.” This epitaph is used far less frequently than any other, yet it is the one that Odysseus himself chooses to use when he reveals his true identity to the Cyclops: “'Cyclops, if any mortal man ever asks you who it was / that inflicted upon your eye this shameful blinding, / tell them that you were blinded by Odysseus, sacker of cities. / Laertes is his father, and he makes his home in Ithaca'” (9.502-4). This is a reminder that the Odyssey is not so much a text about cunning over force as it is a text about the proper marriage of cunning and force for the inscription of order. Odysseus imposes his will where he can, as when he without remorse sacks the Trojan-allied city of the Ciconians, where he and his men “killed their people, / and out of their city taking their wives and many possessions / we shared them out, so none might go cheated of his proper / portion,” and wisely retreats from where he cannot, namely every event that occurs between this sacking and the symbolic simultaneous sacking and restoration of Ithaca from the usurping suitors (9.40-3).

Revised passage:
Odysseus has many commonly repeated honorifics in Homeric verse, such as “many-minded,” “much-enduring,” “cunning,” “resourceful,” and “great-hearted.” However, the most interesting of his honorifics, because of where it appears, is the infrequently used "sacker of cities." Odysseus himself uses this rare epitaph while revealing his true identity to the Cyclops: “'Cyclops, if any mortal man ever asks you who it was / that inflicted upon your eye this shameful blinding, / tell them that you were blinded by Odysseus, sacker of cities. / Laertes is his father, and he makes his home in Ithaca'” (9.502-4). This warlike epitaph is a reminder that the Odyssey is not merely a text that elevates cunning over force. What it demonstrates is the importance of knowing whether cunning or force is most appropriate for the situation. Both cunning and force are necessary because the Odyssey is a series of encounters where both factions attempt to impose their will over the other. Odysseus does not hesitate to use force in the rare occasions in the Odyssey when force alone is sufficient to impose his will, such as when he remorselessly sacks the Trojan-allied city of the Ciconians, where he and his men “killed their people, / and out of their city taking their wives and many possessions / we shared them out, so none might go cheated of his proper / portion” (9.40-3). However, when force alone is inadequate, such as in every situation Odysseus encounters between the sacking of the Ciconians and the slaying of the suitors, he instead uses his cunning to escape before an other's will is imposed upon him.