The Odyssey (; ) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the Iliad, the Odyssey is divided into 24 books. It follows the heroic king of Ithaca, Odysseus, also known by the Latin variant Ulysses, and his homecoming journey after the ten-year long Trojan War. His journey from Troy to Ithaca lasts an additional ten years, during which time he encounters many perils and all of his crewmates are killed. In Odysseus's long absence, he is presumed dead, leaving his wife Penelope and son Telemachus to contend with a group of unruly suitors competing for Penelope's hand in marriage.

The Odyssey was first composed in Homeric Greek around the 8th or 7th century BC; by the mid-6th century BC, it had become part of the Greek literary canon. In antiquity, Homer's authorship was taken as true, but contemporary scholarship predominantly assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently, as part of long oral traditions. Given widespread illiteracy, the poem was performed for an audience by an or rhapsode.

Key themes in the epic include the ideas of (; 'return', homecoming), wandering, (; 'guest-friendship'), testing, and omens. Scholars discuss the narrative prominence of certain groups within the poem, such as women and slaves, who have larger roles than in other works of ancient literature. This focus is especially remarkable when contrasted with the Iliad, which centers upon the exploits of soldiers and kings during the Trojan War.

The Odyssey is regarded as one of the most significant works of the Western canon. The first English translation of the Odyssey was in the 16th century. Adaptations and re-imaginings continue to be produced across a wide variety of media. In 2018, when BBC Culture polled experts around the world to find literature's most enduring narrative, the Odyssey topped the list.

Background

Dating

Many suggestions have been made for dating the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but there is no consensus. Robert Lamberton says that the epics "[straddled] the beginnings of widespread literacy" from the middle of the 5th-century BC, but the poems' language can be dated to long before this period. The Greeks began adopting a modified version of the Phoenician alphabet to create their own writing system during the eighth century BC; if the Homeric poems were among the earliest products of that literacy, they would have been composed towards the late period of that century.

According to Rudolf Pfeiffer, they were probably written down, but there is no evidence for their publishing or physical dissemination for consumption by a literate audience. Dating is further complicated by the fact that the Homeric poems, or sections of them, were performed by rhapsodes for hundreds of years.

Composition and authorship

Scholars agree that the Homeric epics developed as part of an oral tradition over hundreds of years. In the early twentieth century, Milman Parry and Albert Lord demonstrated that they prominently contained the characteristics of oral poetry, which would allow even an illiterate poet to improvise large poems, composing them through speech. Scholars do not agree on how the poems emerged from this tradition, and it is not clear whether oral tradition can claim full credit for their composition. In the nineteenth century, a series of related questions about the epics' authorship became known as the Homeric Question. Sources from antiquity created mythic narratives to explain Homer. Debate still persists today over many of the Homeric questions; for example, concerning the compositional relationship between the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the largely lost poems of the Epic Cycle; about whether Homer lived and, if he did, when; and whether the poems reflect any geographical, historical or cultural reality. While Homer is today attributed as the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, other texts have historically been attributed to him—for example, the Homeric Hymns.

Textual reconstructions indicate the poems have taken many forms. As feedback is an important component of live performance, the content of the poem may have varied from telling to telling. This context is important for understanding and interpreting the epics; John Miles Foley writes that performance is a crucial part of their meaning. The performance of epic poetry is a subject of both poems, with the Odyssey actually depicting professional singers like Phemius and Demodocus. Applying these in-narrative performances to modern understanding of the epics' performance might indicate that they were performed at the houses of distinguished families as part of banquets or dinners in the 2nd and early 1st millennia BC, and that observers may have directed or participated in them. They were probably recited—as in, not performed with music.

Like the Iliad, the Odyssey is divided into twenty-four parts. Early scholars suggested these correspond to the 24 letters of the Greek alphabet, but this is widely considered ahistorical. The division was probably made long after the poem's composition but is now generally accepted as part of the poem's modern structure. There are many theories as to how they arose. Some suggest they were an authentic part of the oral tradition or invented by Alexandrian scholars. Pseudo-Plutarch attributed the divisions to Aristarchus of Samothrace, but there is some evidence against this. Some scholars connect the epics' segmentation to the tradition of performance, for example as a creation of rhapsodes.

Both epics presuppose some knowledge of their audiences—for example, concerning the Trojan War. This strongly indicates that the epics were engaging with a pre-existing mythological tradition. While the Trojan War is an important element for both, the Odyssey does not directly reference any events from the Iliad depiction of the war, and they are generally considered to have formed independently from one another. Arguments exist for either epic having been composed first; it is not clear.

Influences

upright|thumb|Terracotta plaque of the Mesopotamian ogre [[Humbaba, believed to be a possible inspiration for the figure of Polyphemus]]

Scholars note strong influences from Near Eastern mythology and literature in the Odyssey. Martin West notes substantial parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey. Both Odysseus and Gilgamesh are known for traveling to the ends of the earth and on their journeys go to the land of the dead. On his voyage to the underworld, Odysseus follows instructions given to him by Circe, who is located at the edges of the world and associated with solar imagery. Like Odysseus, Gilgamesh gets directions on reaching the land of the dead from a divine helper: the goddess Siduri, who, like Circe, dwells by the sea at the ends of the earth, whose home is also associated with the sun. Gilgamesh reaches Siduri's house by passing through a tunnel underneath Mount Mashu, the high mountain from which the sun comes into the sky. West argues that the similarity of Odysseus's and Gilgamesh's journeys to the edges of the earth are the result of the influence of the Gilgamesh epic upon the Odyssey. Classical folklorist Graham Anderson notes other patterns—the heroes of the Odyssey and Gilgamesh meet women who can transform people into animals; are involved in the death of divine cattle; unhappily enjoy the presence of a "voluptuous lady in an other-worldly paradise" following a voyage through the underworld.

Scholars have explored whether figures originate within the poem or belong to a tradition outside of it. Adrienne Mayor says that the Austrian paleontologist Othenio Abel made unfounded claims about the fifth-century BC philosopher Empedocles connecting the cyclops to prehistoric elephant skulls. Whether the epic poem created, popularised, or simply retold the tale of Polyphemus is a long-standing dispute, but Anderson says there is some amount of scholarly consensus that the story existed separately from the epic. William Bedell Stanford notes there are some indications that Odysseus existed independently of Homer, although it is inconclusive.

Geography

Scholars are divided on whether any of the places visited by Odysseus are real. The events in the main sequence of the Odyssey (excluding Odysseus's embedded narrative of his wanderings) have been said to take place across the Peloponnese and the Ionian Islands. Many have attempted to map Odysseus's journey, but largely agree that the landscapes—especially those described in books 9 to 11—include too many mythical elements to be truly mappable. For instance, there are challenges ascertaining whether Odysseus's homeland of Ithaca is the same island that is now called (modern Greek: ); Calypso keeps Odysseus concealed from the world and unable to return home. After leaving Calypso's island, the poet describes Odysseus's encounters with the Phaeacians—those who "convoy without hurt to all men"—which represents his transition from not returning home to returning home.

Also, during Odysseus's journey, he encounters many beings that are close to the gods. These encounters are useful in understanding that Odysseus is in a world beyond man and that influences the fact he cannot return home. These beings that are close to the gods include the Phaeacians who lived near the Cyclopes, whose king, Alcinous, is the great-grandson of the king of the giants, Eurymedon, and the grandson of Poseidon. Some of the other characters that Odysseus encounters are the cyclops Polyphemus, the son of Poseidon; Circe, a sorceress who turns men into animals; and the cannibalistic giants, the Laestrygonians.

Guest-friendship

thumb|upright|Statue representing the Odyssey, Museum of the [[Ancient Agora of Athens.]]

Throughout the course of the epic, Odysseus encounters several examples of ('guest-friendship'), which provide models of how hosts should and should not act. The Phaeacians demonstrate exemplary guest-friendship by feeding Odysseus, giving him a place to sleep, and granting him many gifts and a safe voyage home, which are all things a good host should do. Polyphemus demonstrates poor guest-friendship. His only "gift" to Odysseus is that he will eat him last. Calypso also exemplifies poor guest-friendship because she does not allow Odysseus to leave her island. Another important factor to guest-friendship is that kingship implies generosity. It is assumed that a king has the means to be a generous host and is more generous with his own property. This is best seen when Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, begs Antinous, one of the suitors, for food and Antinous denies his request. Odysseus essentially says that while Antinous may look like a king, he is far from a king since he is not generous.

According to J. B. Hainsworth, guest-friendship follows a very specific pattern:

  1. The arrival and the reception of the guest.
  2. Bathing or providing fresh clothes to the guest.
  3. Providing food and drink to the guest.
  4. Questions may be asked of the guest and entertainment should be provided by the host.
  5. The guest should be given a place to sleep, and both the guest and host retire for the night.
  6. The guest and host exchange gifts, the guest is granted a safe journey home, and the guest departs.

Another important factor of guest-friendship is not keeping the guest longer than they wish and also promising their safety while they are a guest within the host's home.

Testing

thumb|Penelope questions Odysseus to prove his identity, 1802 painting by [[Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein]]

Another theme throughout the Odyssey is testing. This occurs in two distinct ways. Odysseus tests the loyalty of others and others test Odysseus's identity. An example of Odysseus testing the loyalties of others is when he returns home. Instead of immediately revealing his identity, he arrives disguised as a beggar and then proceeds to determine who in his house has remained loyal to him and who has helped the suitors. After Odysseus reveals his true identity, the characters test Odysseus's identity to see if he really is who he says he is. For instance, Penelope tests Odysseus's identity by saying that she will move the bed into the other room for him. This is a difficult task since it is made out of a living tree that would require being cut down, a fact that only the real Odysseus would know, thus proving his identity.

Testing also has a very specific type scene that accompanies it. Throughout the epic, the testing of others follows a typical pattern. This pattern is:

  1. Odysseus is hesitant to question the loyalties of others.
  2. Odysseus tests the loyalties of others by questioning them.
  3. The characters reply to Odysseus's questions.
  4. Odysseus proceeds to reveal his identity.
  5. The characters test Odysseus's identity.
  6. There is a rise of emotions associated with Odysseus's recognition, usually lament or joy.
  7. Finally, the reconciled characters work together.

Omens

thumb|upright|Odysseus and Eurycleia by [[Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein]]

Omens occur frequently throughout the Odyssey. Within the epic poem, they frequently involve birds. According to Thornton, most crucial is who receives each omen and in what way it manifests. For instance, bird omens are shown to Telemachus, Penelope, Odysseus, and the suitors. Telemachus and Penelope receive their omens as well in the form of words, sneezes, and dreams. However, Odysseus is the only character who receives thunder or lightning as an omen. She highlights this as crucial because lightning, as a symbol of Zeus, represents the kingship of Odysseus. Odysseus is associated with Zeus throughout both the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Omens are another example of a type scene in the Odyssey. Two important parts of an omen type scene are the recognition of the omen, followed by its interpretation. In the Odyssey, all of the bird omens—with the exception of the first—show large birds attacking smaller birds. Accompanying each omen is a wish which can be either explicitly stated or only implied. For example, Telemachus wishes for vengeance and for Odysseus to be home, Penelope wishes for Odysseus's return, and the suitors wish for the death of Telemachus.

Reception

Pre-classical period to late antiquity

Homer was widely celebrated in Greek society as an impressively talented and didactic poet, instructing audiences on topics ranging from philosophy to science. Audiences were primarily exposed to the epics through performances in both Archaic and Classical Greece, but their status among audiences in the early Archaic period (840–700 BC) is not understood. Scholars of at least two ancient libraries—the Library of Alexandria and the Library of Pergamum—studied ancient versions of the Homeric epics. Alexandrian scholars included Zenodotus of Ephesus (early third century BC), Aristophanes of Byzantium (early second century BC) and Aristarchus of Samothrace (mid-second century BC).

Ancient scholarship explored a variety of topics. Some explored narrative inconsistencies, for example. Allegory was a particularly common interpretation. Wilson says this interpretation allowed scholars "to make sense of puzzling or disturbing scenes in the Odyssey". Allegorical arguments also defended from Homer allegations that he had disrespected the gods—a criticism famously made by the fifth/sixth-century BC philosopher Xenophanes—but were rejected by Alexandrian scholars as too convenient. Pergamon scholar Crates of Mallus explored the epics as containing allegorical insight into cosmology and geography. Heraclitus (late sixth/early fifth century BC) and Porphyry (third century) also wrote allegorical interpretations. Porphyry's Homeric Questions is the sole surviving large Homeric essay of the classical era. He limited his analytical scope to only explore questions that the Homeric text answered—he called this the Aristarchan principle. Porphyry saw the nymphs' caves as representing human life, and Heraclitis argued that Telemachus' encounter with Athena represented "the development of rationality" as he becomes a man.

Many ancient editions of the Homeric epics existed; the Alexandrian library possessed some. In material derived from the commentary of the fourth-century scholar Didymus, ancient versions were divided into "city editions" and "individual editions". City editions were likely created within the city (perhaps as "official" versions) while individual editions were prepared independently by scholars. He mentions individual versions owned by Antimachus, Aristophanes of Byzantium, Sosigenes, Rhianus of Crete, Callistratus, and Philemon. City editions are known in Argos, Chios, Crete, Cyprus, and Marseille. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey were school texts in places where the Greek language was spoken. They were probably part of the curriculum for the elite of Classical Athens, and in the Roman Empire. They were regarded as instructive for rhetorical skill, and reading. The Trojan War and its participants were already important mythological and historical references for the Roman Empire, and the Romans readily absorbed Homer into their culture, transmitting the epic east and west.

Alexander the Great's conquests spread Hellenistic cultural influence throughout the Eastern Mediterranean; it became read by every school child in the Greek world. By the sixth century, the Homeric poems had a canonical place within the institutions of ancient Athens. The Athenian tyrant Peisistratos or his son Hipparchus instituted a civic and religious festival, the Panathenaia, which probably featured performances of Homeric poetry; a "correct" version had to be performed, possibly indicating that a version of the text had become canonised. They may only have performed sections of the poems, and it is not likely that they were performed without a break.

Post-classical

Beyond classical antiquity and into the Byzantine era, the spread of the Greek language—and the consequent internal translation of the Homeric texts as it spread—maintained the Odyssey relevancy and status. Armstrong says both epics may have dropped from knowledge otherwise, citing Beowulf as an example of this fate. The orthodox Byzantine view was that Homer wrote the two epics alongside the Homeric Hymns and the Batrachomyomachia, with some philological scepticism over the latter. The Iliad and the Odyssey remained widely studied throughout the Middle Ages and were used as school texts within the Byzantine Empire. Homeric Greek was difficult for Byzantine students, requiring paratexts to explain grammatical and mythological references. Much of the surviving Byzantine scholarship was originally intended as educational material. Students probably did not have physical copies of the epics, but certain manuscripts might have been made available to talented students. They primarily learned via dictation and repetition.

According to Lamberton, the audience of the epics changed in the middle Byzantine age. Once the domain of grammarians and students, adults began to read them for pleasure and wondered the narratives of the Iliad and the Odyssey related to the wider Trojan narrative. The twelfth-century poet John Tzetzes produced Homeric Allegories for Manuel I Komnenos's consort, which summarised Odyssey and other texts. Mavroudi says Tzetzes' work married cultural concepts from the Homeric and Byzantine periods; Tzetzes compared Manuel I to the kingly figures of Zeus and Agamemnon, and depicted Odysseus with a protruding stomach.

Byzantine interpretation was influenced by the Homeric Questions of Porphyry by way of Neopythagorean and Neoplatonic scholars. The Byzantine scholar and archbishop Eustathios of Thessalonike () wrote exhaustive commentaries on both of the Homeric epics that were seen as authoritative by later generations; his commentary on the Odyssey alone spans nearly 2,000 oversized pages in a twentieth-century edition. The first printed edition of the Odyssey, or the editio princeps, was produced in 1488 by the Greek scholar Demetrios Chalkokondyles, who was born in Athens and studied in Constantinople. His edition was printed in Milan by a Greek printer named Antonios Damilas.

Early modern

thumb|Ulysses and Telemachus kill Penelope's Suitors by [[Thomas Degeorge (1812)|alt=]]During the quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns—a late 17th- and early 18th-century artistic debate in France—the Odyssey and Iliad were two of the primary subjects. The Homeric texts were criticised by the writers Jean Desmarets, Pierre Bayle, and Charles Perrault; Howard Clarke says that Perrault refrained from directly castigating the poems in the absence of a French epic, with Perrault granting Homer "ritual praise" by describing him as "Father of all the Arts". Defenders of the epics and Homer included Jean de La Fontaine and Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux. The debate subsided briefly in 1700, later reigniting between the French scholars Anne Dacier, a translator and staunch defender of Homer, and the Moderns proponent Antoine Houdar de la Motte. Dacier's Homeric translations included a 90-page introduction addressing the criticisms of Perrault and other Moderns; in his abridged translation of Homer, Houdar de la Motte responded, and Dacier produced a 600-page rebuttal. A rhetorical ceasefire was called in 1716.

As part of the quarrel, questions arose over the traditional view of Homer as a singular poet. François Hédelin, Abbé d' Aubignac criticised Homer's sustenance of theme; his language; and observed that nothing was known about his life. Perrault posited that the epics were written by different poets, possibly from each city that claimed to be Homer's birthplace, and then assembled; he credited the theory to the late Hédelin. Richard Bentley argued that the Athenian tyrant Pisistratus assembled different songs five-hundred years after initial composition. His research also showed that Homeric Greek did not resemble the Greek of the classical period.

Modern

In the early 20th century, Milman Parry and Albert Lord demonstrated that illiterate singers could exploit formulaic language to improvise large poems, much like the Homeric Greek. Of the 27,803 lines in the original texts, around 9200 are repetitions, ranging from groups of words to entire sections. Their research decisively showed that the Homeric texts formed as oral poetry. Parry and Lord were investigating the South Slavic epic tradition, inspired by the work of philologist Matija Murko. Parry's doctoral thesis had explored traditional Homeric epithets, drawing from the work of French linguist Antoine Meillet, but he did not comprehend the significance completely until travelling to Yugoslavia to conduct field work with Lord. Scholarship became increasingly interdisciplinary in the late twentieth century, synthesising literary research with archaeological and religious findings.

Legacy

thumb|upright|Front cover of [[James Joyce's Ulysses (1922)|alt=]]

The influence of the Homeric texts can be difficult to summarise because of how greatly they have affected popular imagination and cultural values. The Odyssey and the Iliad formed the basis of education for members of ancient Mediterranean society. That curriculum was adopted by Western humanists, meaning the text was so much a part of the cultural fabric that an individual having read it was irrelevant. Robert Browning says that the scholarship conducted on the Homeric epics at the Library of Alexandria "laid the foundation" for "European literacy and philological studies". The epics mark the beginning of the Western literary tradition and, according to Corinne Ondine Pasche, have unrivalled influence. The Odyssey has reverberated over a millennium of writing; a poll of experts for BBC Culture named it literature's most enduring narrative.

Translation

Livius Andronicus produced a Latin translation, Odusia. Little is known about the full work, which was probably not simply a translation, but surviving fragments are more formal than the original, and he reappropriated Homeric imagery from one part of the poem to another. Livius' Odusia eventually became a school text for Latin students; Michael von Albrecht says his translation was "beaten into" a young Horace. Nicholas Sigeros provided Petrarch with manuscripts of the Iliad and the Odyssey in 1354. Petrarch's correspondent Giovanni Boccaccio persuaded a monk called Pilato to produce translations in Latin prose—he finished the Iliad, but only came close to finishing the Odyssey. The first printed edition in Greek was published in Milan 1488 by Demetrios Chalkokondyles, a Greek scholar resident in Florence.

Printed translations for modern European languages surged in popularity in the 16th century, although many were only partial translations. The most popular edition of the century was a word-for-word Latin translation by Andreas Divus. The first completed Italian Odyssey, written by Girolamo Baccelli in free verse, was published in 1582. The first completed French translation was composed in Alexandrine couplets by Salomon Certon and printed in 1604. It lost public favour following the Académie Française language reforms in the 1630s and 1640s. Arthur Hall was the first to translate Homer into English: his translation of the Iliad first 10 books, which was published in 1581, relied upon a French version. George Chapman became the first writer to complete a translation of both epics into English after finishing his translation of the Odyssey. These translations were published together in 1616, but were serialised earlier, and became the first modern translations to enjoy widespread success. He worked on Homeric translation for most of his life, and his work later inspired John Keats' sonnet "On First Looking into Chapman's Homer" (1816). Emily Wilson writes that almost all prominent translators of Greco-Roman literature had been men, arguing this impacted the popular understanding of the Odyssey.

Johann Heinrich Voss' 18th-century translations of the epics are among his most celebrated works, and profoundly influenced the German language. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe called Voss' translations transformational masterpieces that initiated interest in German Hellenism. Anne Dacier translated the Iliad and Odyssey into French prose, appearing in 1711 and 1716, respectively; it was the standard French Homeric translation until the late 18th century. Antoine Houdar de La Motte, who could not read Greek, used Dacier's Iliad to produce his own contracted version of the Iliad and criticised Homer in the preface. Dacier's translation of the Odyssey profoundly influenced the 1720s translation by Alexander Pope, which he produced for financial reasons years after his Iliad. He translated twelve books himself and divided the other twelve between Elijah Fenton and William Broome; the latter also provided annotations. This information eventually leaked, harming his reputation and profits. The first Odyssey in the Russian language may have been Vasily Zhukovsky's 1849 translation in hexameter. Luo Niansheng began translating the first Chinese language Iliad in the late 1980s, but he died in 1990 before completing it; his student Wang Huansheng finished the project, which was published in 1994. Huansheng's Odyssey followed three years later.

Literature

Classicist Edith Hall says the Odyssey has been regarded as "the very birthplace of literary fiction"; in T. E. Lawrence's 1932 introduction to the epic, he called it "the greatest novel ever written". It is widely regarded by western literary critics as a timeless classic, and it remains one of the oldest pieces of literature regularly read by Western audiences. Brian Stableford, who described it as a kind of forerunner to science fiction, says it has been reconfigured as science fiction more than any other literary work.

In Canto XXVI of the Inferno, Dante Alighieri meets Odysseus in the eighth circle of hell: Odysseus appends a new ending to the epic in which he continues adventuring and does not return to Ithaca. Edith Hall suggests that Dante's depiction of Odysseus became understood as a manifestation of Renaissance colonialism and othering, with the cyclops standing in for "accounts of monstrous races on the edge of the world", and his defeat as symbolising "the Roman domination of the western Mediterranean". Some of Odysseus's adventures reappear in the Arabic tales of Sinbad the Sailor.

The Irish writer James Joyce's modernist novel Ulysses (1922) was significantly influenced by the Odyssey. Joyce had encountered the figure of Odysseus in Charles Lamb's Adventures of Ulysses, an adaptation of the epic poem for children, which seems to have established the Latin name in Joyce's mind. Ulysses, a re-telling of the Odyssey set in Dublin, is divided into eighteen sections ("episodes") which can be mapped roughly onto the twenty-four books of the Odyssey. Joyce claimed familiarity with the original Homeric Greek, but this has been disputed by some scholars, who cite his poor grasp of the language as evidence to the contrary. The book, and especially its stream of consciousness prose, is widely considered foundational to the modernist genre.

Modern writers have revisited the Odyssey to highlight the poem's female characters. Canadian writer Margaret Atwood adapted parts of the Odyssey for her novella The Penelopiad (2005). The novella focuses on Penelope and the twelve female slaves hanged by Odysseus at the poem's ending, an image which haunted Atwood. Atwood's novella comments on the original text, wherein Odysseus's successful return to Ithaca entails the restoration of a patriarchal system. As a reader, Miller was frustrated by Circe's lack of motivation in the original poem and sought to explain her capriciousness. The novel portrays the sorceress' transformations of sailors into pigs from an act of malice into one of self-defence, influenced by her past experience with sexual predators.

Film and television

thumbtime=103|thumb|[[L'Odissea (1911 film)|L'Odissea (1911)]]

  • L'Odissea (1911) is an Italian silent film by Giuseppe de Liguoro.
  • Ulysses (1954) is an Italian film adaptation starring Kirk Douglas as Ulysses, Silvana Mangano as Penelope and Circe, and Anthony Quinn as Antinous.
  • L'Odissea (1968) is an Italian-French-German-Yugoslavian television miniseries praised for its faithful rendering of the original epic.
  • Ulysses 31 (1981–1982) is a French-Japanese television animated series set in the futuristic 31st century.
  • Nostos: The Return (1989) is an Italian film about Odysseus's homecoming. Directed by Franco Piavoli, it relies on visual storytelling and has a strong focus on nature.
  • Ulysses' Gaze (1995), directed by Theo Angelopoulos, has many of the elements of the Odyssey set against the backdrop of the most recent and previous Balkan Wars.
  • The Odyssey (1997) is a television miniseries directed by Andrei Konchalovsky and starring Armand Assante as Odysseus and Greta Scacchi as Penelope.
  • O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) is a crime comedy drama film written, produced, co-edited and directed by the Coen brothers and is very loosely based on Homer's poem.
  • The Return (2024) is a film based on Books 13–24, directed by Uberto Pasolini and starring Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as Penelope.
  • The Odyssey (2026), written and directed by Christopher Nolan, will be based on the poem and is slated to be released in 2026.

Opera and music

  • Il ritorno d'Ulisse in patria, first performed in 1640, is an opera by Claudio Monteverdi based on the second half of Homer's Odyssey.
  • Rolf Riehm composed an opera based on the myth, Sirenen – Bilder des Begehrens und des Vernichtens (Sirens: Images of Desire and Destruction), which premiered at the Oper Frankfurt in 2014.
  • Robert W. Smith's second symphony for concert band, The Odyssey, tells four of the main highlights of the story in the piece's four movements: "The Iliad", "The Winds of Poseidon", "The Isle of Calypso", and "Ithaca".
  • Jean-Claude Gallota's ballet Ulysse, based on both the Odyssey and James Joyce's Ulysses.
  • Jorge Rivera-Herrans' sung-through work Epic: The Musical tells the story of the Odyssey over the course of nine "sagas", beginning with the end of the Trojan War and carrying through to Odysseus's homecoming to Ithaca.

Sciences

  • Psychiatrist Jonathan Shay wrote two books, Achilles in Vietnam: Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character (1994) and Odysseus in America: Combat Trauma and the Trials of Homecoming (2002), which relate the Iliad and the Odyssey to posttraumatic stress disorder and moral injury as seen in the rehabilitation histories of combat veteran patients.

Notes and references

Notes

References

Bibliography

Books

Journals, news and web

Further reading

  • Austin, N. 1975. Archery at the Dark of the Moon: Poetic Problems in Homer's Odyssey. Berkeley: University of California Press.
  • Butler, Samuel (1922). The Authoress of the Odyssey by Samuel Butler; .
  • Clayton, B. 2004. A Penelopean Poetics: Reweaving the Feminine in Homer's Odyssey. Lanham: Lexington Books.
  • Clayton, B. 2011. "Polyphemus and Odysseus in the Nursery: Mother's Milk in the Cyclopeia". Arethusa 44(3):255–77.
  • Bakker, E. J. 2013. The Meaning of Meat and the Structure of the Odyssey. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Barnouw, J. 2004. Odysseus, Hero of Practical Intelligence. Deliberation and Signs in Homer's Odyssey. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.
  • Dougherty, C. 2001. The Raft of Odysseus: The Ethnographic Imagination of Homer's Odyssey. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Fenik, B. 1974. Studies in the Odyssey. Hermes: Einzelschriften 30. Wiesbaden, West Germany: F. Steiner.
  • Griffin, J. 1987. Homer: The Odyssey. Landmarks in World Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Louden, B. 1999. The Odyssey: Structure, Narration and Meaning. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
  • Louden, B. 2011. Homer's Odyssey and the Near East. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Müller, W. G. 2015. "From Homer's Odyssey to Joyce's Ulysses: Theory and Practice of an Ethical Narratology"; . Arcadia 50(1):9–36.
  • Perpinyà, Núria. 2008. Las criptas de la crítica. Veinte lecturas de la Odisea [The Crypts of Criticism: Twenty Interpretations of the 'Odyssey'] . Madrid: Gredos. Lay summary; via El Cultural .
  • Reece, Steve. 2011. "Toward an Ethnopoetically Grounded Edition of Homer's Odyssey"; . Oral Tradition 26:299–326.
  • Saïd, S. 2011 [1998]. Homer and the Odyssey. New York: Oxford University Press.
  • Thurman, Judith (18 September 2023). "Mother Tongue: Emily Wilson Makes Homer Modern", The New Yorker. pp. 46–53. A biography, and presentation of the translation theories and practices, of Emily Wilson. As a translator, I was determined to make the whole human experience of the poems accessible,' Wilson said." (p. 47.)

The Odyssey in ancient Greek

  • The Odyssey (in Ancient Greek) on Perseus Project
  • Odyssey: the Greek text presented with the translation by Butler and vocabulary, notes, and analysis of difficult grammatical forms

English translations

  • The Odyssey, trans. by A. T. Murray (1919) on Perseus Project
  • The Odyssey of Homer, trans. by T. E. Lawrence (under the name T. E. Shaw). New York: Oxford University Press, 1932
  • Odyssey, trans. by Ian C. Johnston (2002; released into the public domain January 2024)

Other resources

  • BBC audio file—In Our Time, BBC Radio 4 [discussion programme, 45 mins]
  • The Odyssey Comix—A detailed retelling and explanation of Homer's Odyssey in comic-strip format by Greek Myth Comix
  • The Odyssey—Annotated text and analyses aligned to Common Core Standards
  • "Homer's Odyssey: A Commentary" by Denton Jaques Snider on Project Gutenberg