Odyssey

Odyssey, epic poem in 24 books traditionally attributed to the ancient Greek poet Homer. The poem is the story of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, who wanders for 10 years (although the action of the poem covers only the final six weeks) trying to get home after the Trojan War. On his return, he is recognized only by his faithful dog and a nurse. With the help of his son, Telemachus, Odysseus destroys the insistent suitors of his faithful wife, Penelope, and several of her maids who had fraternized with the suitors and reestablishes himself in his kingdom.

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>Odyssey.

The Odyssey does not follow a linear chronology. The reader begins in the middle of the tale, learning about previous events only through Odysseus’s retelling. The first four books set the scene in Ithaca. Telemachus is searching for news of his father, who has not been heard from since he left for war nearly 20 years earlier. Telemachus seeks out two men who fought with Odysseus in the war at Troy, Nestor and Menelaus, and discovers that his father is, indeed, still alive. The second four books (V–VIII) introduce the main character, Odysseus, as he is being released from captivity by the nymph Calypso on the island of Ogygia. He suffers a shipwreck and lands on the shore of Scheria, the land of the Phaeacians. In Books IX–XII Odysseus tells the Phaeacians of his harrowing journey as he has tried to find his way home. Finally, Books XIII–XXIV, the second half of the poem, find Odysseus back in Ithaca, facing unexpected obstacles and danger. In order to reunite with his wife, who resisted the importuning of more than a hundred suitors—who have stayed in Odysseus’s house, eating, drinking, and carousing while waiting for Penelope to decide among them—Odysseus kills them all, with the aid of Telemachus, Eumaeus (a servant and swineherd), and Philoetius (a servant and cowherd).

Scholars date the writing of the Odyssey to about 675–725 bce. The poem was intended for oral performance. It was composed of 12,109 lines written in dactylic hexameter (sometimes referred to as “Homeric hexameter”)—that is, each line consisted of six feet, or metrical units, and each foot consisted of a dactyl (a stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllables). The original work may not have been constructed into the 24 books known to the contemporary reader, and the parts were certainly not in codex form. In the ancient world, the poem was likely written in columns on rolls made from papyrus, or possibly some kind of animal skin (such as vellum and parchment). Given its extraordinary length, the poem may have actually occupied 24 individual rolls. Homer’s role in the writing of the poem and whether he was literate have been a source for rich scholarly debate, commonly referred to as the “Homeric Question.”

Until the 15th century all volumes of the Odyssey in circulation were in handwritten Greek. In 1488 the first printed version (still in Greek) was produced in Florence. The earliest vernacular translations of the Odyssey from its original Ionic Greek dialect began to appear in Europe during the 16th century. Applying the ancient Greek metre to contemporary vernaculars, especially to words meant to be spoken aloud rather than read privately, posed a particular challenge, forcing translators to add and invent words in order to make the metre work. Some have translated it into prose and some into verse.

The first translation into English based on Homer’s original Greek was by playwright and poet George Chapman, published in London in 1616. Other notable early translators include Alexander Pope (1725–26), William Morris (1887), and Samuel Butler (1900). Several English translations were published in the 20th century, notably those by Emile Victor (E.V.) Rieu (1945; revised and reissued by his son, D.C.H. Rieu, in 1991), Robert Fitzgerald (1961), and Richmond Lattimore (1965). A best-selling verse translation by Robert Fagles (1996) was praised for employing language both contemporary and timeless. In 2017 Emily Wilson became, according to her publisher, the first woman to translate and publish the Odyssey in English. The poem has also been adapted for children and young readers and has been issued by Marvel as a comic book. The Odyssey, and the telling of a journey home, has inspired many works of art and fiction such as James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922); Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad (2005), the tale told through the eyes of Penelope; and the Coen brothers film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000).

An everyman’s tale and a romance, the Odyssey is filled with adventure, longing and temptation, the struggle between good and evil, and hard-won triumph. It is an enduring classic because its hero, Odysseus, and his story, though centuries old, are remarkably human and continue to grip the contemporary imagination.