Odyssey

Name	The Odyssey
Image
Caption	Oldest-known manuscript fragment of the Odyssey, produced in Ptolemaic Egypt during the 3rd century BC and unearthed in Medinet Ghoram
Original Title	Ὀδύσσεια
Original Title Lang	el
Translator	See translations of the Odyssey or English translations
Language	Homeric Greek
Genre	Epic
Form	Epic poem
Metre	Dactylic hexameter
Rhyme	None
Written Label	Composed
By Label	Attributed to
Author	Homer
Lines	12,109
Preceded By	The Iliad
Wikisource	The Odyssey
Orig Lang Code	el
Native Wikisource	Οδύσσεια

Background

Dating

Many suggestions have been made for dating 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

Homeric Question
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 indicates the poems have taken many forms. As live performance involves feedback, the content of the poem may even have varied from telling to telling. This context is important for understanding and interpreting the epics, and John Miles Foley said that performance is crucial part of their meaning. 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 our 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 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 assume 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. Arguments exist for either epic having been composed first; it is not clear. 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.

Influences

Geography

Homer's Ithaca
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 «Ithakē» (modern Greek: «Ιθάκη»); the same is true of the route described by Odysseus to the Phaeacians and their island of Scheria. British classicist Peter Jones writes that the poem was likely updated many times by oral story-tellers across several centuries before it was written down, making it "virtually impossible" to say "in what sense poem reflects a historical society or accurate geographical knowledge". Modern scholars tend to explore Odysseus's journey metaphorically rather than literally.

Synopsis

Style

Structure

Narrative and language

The epic has 12,109 lines composed in dactylic hexameter, sometimes called Homeric hexameter—a metre with six metrical feet. The form of hexameter is catelectic, meaning that it lacks an expected syllable in the last foot. Each line has between twelve and seventeen syllables and generally forms a grammatically complete sentence. The poems may have inherited some stylistic traditions but invented others.

The narrative is primarily related through speech—that is, characters talking to themselves or to somebody else. Consequently, they frequently serve as narrators alongside the Homeric narrator, and their speech is the primary method of characterisation.

The language is simple, direct, and fast-paced. It is also literary in style—the vocabulary was likely never the vernacular of any Greek population. An important characteristic of the language is the Homeric simile. These are comparative metaphors that can be long or short, typically deriving from the natural world or everyday life. Irene de Jong describes them as "omnitemporal"—they may use the simple present tense, or the epic tense (blending past and present), or they may present a timeless truth (gnomic aorist). Their functions vary; examples include characterisation and the reinforcement of theme. Traditionally, the Homeric simile was regarded as a predecessor of European literary similes. This has been contested—for example by Oliver Taplin. Modern scholars generally agree that the Homeric similes formed as part of the epics' oral tradition, but earlier writers sometimes said they were added by one or more later poets.

An important element of Homeric texts is their use of epithets—in English, these are often translated as compound adjectives like much-nourished or much-nourishing.

Themes and patterns

Homecoming

Wandering

Before Odysseus's arrival in Ithaca, only two of his adventures are described by the narrator. The rest of Odysseus's adventures are recounted by Odysseus himself. The two scenes described by the narrator are Odysseus on Calypso's island and Odysseus's encounter with the Phaeacians. These scenes are told by the poet to represent an important transition in Odysseus's journey: being concealed to returning home.

Calypso's name comes from the Greek word «kalúptō» («»), meaning 'to cover' or 'conceal', which is apt, as this is exactly what she does with Odysseus. 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

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.

Testing

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

Reception

Homeric scholarship

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

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

Translation

English translations of Homer
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 to 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 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. Similarly, Madeline Miller's Circe (2018) revisits the relationship between Odysseus and Circe on Aeaea. As a reader, Miller was frustrated by Circe's lack of motivation in the original poem and sought to explain her capriciousness. The novel recontextualises the sorceress' transformations of sailors into pigs from an act of malice into one of self-defence, given that she has no superhuman strength with which to repel attackers.

Film and television

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

Category:Operas based on the Odyssey

• 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

• Cartwright, Mark, 15 March 2017, Odyssey, live, 4 July 2017, 29 July 2022, World History Encyclopedia
• Sinbad the Sailor, Encyclopedia Brittanica, 12 November 2024, 9 July 2019, live
• Burton, Richard, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night Volume VI, 1885, The Burton Club; Oxford
• Drabble, Margaret, 1995, The Oxford Companion to English Literature, Ulysses, Oxford University Press, Oxford
• Williams, Linda R., 1992, The Bloomsbury Guides to English Literature: The Twentieth Century, Bloomsbury, London, 108–109
• Beard, Mary, 28 October 2005, Review: Helen of Troy , , Weight , , The Penelopiad , , Songs on Bronze, The Guardian, 0261-3077, 26 March 2016, live
• 28 October 2005, Margaret Atwood: A personal odyssey and how she rewrote Homer, The Independent, 7 July 2020, live
• 21 April 2018, Circe by Madeline Miller review – myth, magic and single motherhood, The Guardian, en, 14 June 2020, live
• 'Circe' Gets A New Motivation, NPR.org, en, 25 April 2018, live
• Messud, Claire, 28 May 2018, December's Book Club Pick: Turning Circe Into a Good Witch (Published 2018), en-US, The New York Times, 0362-4331, 6 September 2020, live
• Luzzi, Joseph, Italian Cinema from the Silent Screen to the Digital Image, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2020
• Wilson, Wendy S., World History On The Screen: Film And Video Resources:grade 10–12, Herman, Gerald H., Walch Publishing, 2003, 5 January 2020, live
• Garcia Morcillo, Marta, Imagining Ancient Cities in Film: From Babylon to Cinecittà, Hanesworth, Pauline, Lapeña Marchena, Óscar, 11 February 2015, Routledge
• Ulysses 31 , 31, 8 June 2024, Our Mythical Childhood Survey, 8 June 2024, live
• Lapeña Marchena, Óscar, 2018, Ulysses in the Cinema: The Example of , Nostos, il ritorno, (Franco Piavoli, Italy, 1990), Rovira Guardiola, Rosario, The Ancient Mediterranean Sea in Modern Visual and Performing Arts: Sailing in Troubled Waters, Imagines – Classical Receptions in the Visual and Performing Arts, London, Bloomsbury Academic
• Siegel, Janice, 2007, The Coens' O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Homer's Odyssey, live, Mouseion: Journal of the Classical Association of Canada, en, 7, 3, 213–245, 10.1353/mou.0.0029, 1913-5416, 6 August 2020, 163006295, subscription
• 'English Patient' Stars Juliette Binoche, Ralph Fiennes Will Reunite in 'The Return,' a Gritty Take on 'The Odyssey', Variety, 28 April 2023, Manori, Ravindran, 3 June 2023, 16 February 2023, live
• Grobar, Matt, 23 December 2024, Christopher Nolan's Next Film Is An Adaptation Of Homer's 'The Odyssey,' Universal Reveals, live, 23 December 2024, 24 December 2024, Deadline Hollywood
• Monteverdi's 'The Return of Ulysses', live, 2017-02-24, NPR, 23 March 2007
• Griffel, Margaret Ross, Operas in German: A Dictionary, Rowman & Littlefield, 2018, Sirenen, Margaret Ross Griffel, 3 October 2020, 13 August 2023, live
• The Iliad (from The Odyssey (Symphony No. 2)), live, 8 August 2020, www.alfred.com
• Rabinowitz, Chloe, Epic: The Troy Saga Passes 3 Million Streams in First Week of Release, 30 November 2024, BroadwayWorld, en, 13 November 2024, live
• McKinnon, Madeline, Music Review: 'Epic: The Musical', 30 November 2024, The Spectrum, en-US, 9 November 2024, live

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• Ruskin, John, 1868, The Mystery of Life and its Arts, Cambridge University Press
• Stableford, Brian, Brian Stableford, Anatomy of Wonder: A Critical Guide to Science Fiction, 2004, Libraries Unlimited, Barron, Neil, Neil Barron, 5th, The Emergence of Science Fiction, 1516–1914, 1976
• Stanford, W. B., William Bedell Stanford, The Ulysses Theme: A Study in the Adaptability of the Traditional Hero, 1968, 2nd, University of Michigan Press
• Steiner, George, After Babel: Aspects of Language and Translation, Oxford University Press, 1975
• Taplin, Oliver, Homeric Soundings: The Shaping of the Iliad, 1995, Clarendon Press, Revised
• Thornton, Agathe, 1970, People and Themes in Homer's Odyssey, Methuen
• von Albrecht, Michael, A History of Roman Literature, 1997, Brill
• West, Martin, Martin Litchfield West, 1997, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth, Clarendon Press
• Willcock, Malcolm L., 2007, A Companion to The Iliad: Based on the Translation by Richard Lattimore, Phoenix Books
• Wilson, Emily, 2018, The Odyssey, Introduction: When Was The Odyssey Composed?, W. W. Norton & Company
• Wilson, Emily, 2020, The Odyssey: A Norton Critical Edition, W. W. Norton and Company

Journals, news and web

• Ames, Keri Elizabeth, 2005, Joyce's Aesthetic of the Double Negative and His Encounters with Homer's "Odyssey", European Joyce Studies, 16, 15–48, 44871207, 0923-9855, 16 October 2020, 31 March 2021, live
• Armstrong, Richard H., 2018, Review of Homer: The Odyssey, Museum Helveticum, 75, 2, 225–226, 26831950, 0027-4054, 8 September 2025, 30 July 2025, live
• 10 July 2018, Homer Odyssey: Oldest extract discovered on clay tablet, live, 1 September 2020, BBC News
• Bonifazi, Anna, Winter 2009, Inquiring into Nostos and Its Cognates, The American Journal of Philology, 130, 4, 481–510, 0002-9475, 20616206
• Brammall, Sheldon, 1 July 2018, Review: George Chapman: Homer's Iliad, Translation and Literature, 27, 2, 10.3366/tal.2018.0339, 0968-1361, 165293864
• Odyssey, 16 February 2021, Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary, Cambridge University Press, 2025, live
• Cooper, David L., 2007, Vasilii Zhukovskii as a Translator and the Protean Russian Nation, The Russian Review, 66, 2, 185–203, 10.1111/j.1467-9434.2007.00437.x, 20620532, 0036-0341, 12 September 2025, 30 July 2025, live
• Curran, Jane V., 1996, Wieland's Revival of Horace, International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 3, 2, 171–184, 10.1007/BF02677914, 30222268, 1073-0508
• Daley, Jason, 11 July 2018, Oldest Greek Fragment of Homer Discovered on Clay Tablet, live, 23 January 2019, 29 July 2022, Smithsonian
• Finkelberg, Margalit, 2003, Neoanalysis and Oral Tradition in Homeric Studies, Oral Tradition, 18, 1, 68–69, 10.1353/ort.2004.0014, 1542-4308, free
• Davison, J. A., 1955, Peisistratus and Homer, Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, 86, 1–21, 10.2307/283605, 0065-9711, 283605
• Edwards, Mark W., 1992, Homer and the Oral Tradition, Oral Tradition, 7, 2, 284–330
• Fay, H. C., 1952, George Chapman's Translation of Homer's 'iliad', Greece & Rome, 21, 63, 104–111, 10.1017/S0017383500011578, 640882, 161366016, 0017-3835, 31 December 2022, 31 December 2022, live, subscription
• Foley, John Miles, Spring 2007, "Reading" Homer through Oral Tradition, College Literature, 34, 2, 1–28, 0093-3139, 25115419
• Hainsworth, J. B., December 1972, The Odyssey – Agathe Thornton: People and Themes in Homer's Odyssey, The Classical Review, 22, 3, 320–321, 10.1017/s0009840x00996720, 163047986, 0009-840X
• Haslam, M. W., 1976, Homeric Words and Homeric Metre: Two Doublets Examined (λείβω/εϊβω, γαΐα/αία), Glotta, 54, 3/4, 201–211, 0017-1298, 40266365
• Haynes, Natalie, Natalie Haynes, 22 May 2018, The Greatest Tale Ever Told?, live, 19 June 2020, BBC
• Higgins, Charlotte, Charlotte Higgins, 13 November 2019, From Carnage to a Camp Beauty Contest: The Endless Allure of Troy, live, 9 January 2020, The Guardian
• Jankos, Richard, 2000, Review: 'Dividing Homer: When and How were the Iliad and the Odyssey divided into songs?', Bryn Mawr Classical Review, 1055-7660, 14 June 2025, 31 July 2025, live
• Jensen, Minne Skafte, 1999, Dividing Homer: When and How were the Iliad and the Odyssey divided into songs?, Symbolae Osloenses, 74
• Kundmueller, Michelle, 2013, Following Odysseus Home: an Exploration of the Politics of Honor and Family in the Iliad, Odyssey, and Plato's Republic, American Political Science, 1–39, 2301247
• Liney, Nicolas, The Last Words of Milman Parry, The Oxonian Review, 6 June 2020, 7 June 2020, dead
• Most, Glenn W., 1989, The Structure and Function of Odysseus' Apologoi, Transactions of the American Philological Association, 119, 15–30, 10.2307/284257, 284257, 0360-5949, subscription, 15 September 2025, 20 February 2025, live
• Myrsiades, Kostas, Pinsker, Sanford, 1976, A Bibliographical Guide to Teaching the Homeric Epics in College Courses, live, College Literature, 3, 3, 237–259, 0093-3139, 25111144, 31 December 2022, 31 December 2022
• North, Anna, 20 November 2017, Historically, men translated the Odyssey. Here's what happened when a woman took the job, live, 27 June 2020, 29 July 2022, Vox
• pierrer, 30 September 2012, The Wanderings of a Translation: From Greek to German to Russian, Translation at Michigan, University of Michigan, 2025-07-30, , 8 September 2025, live
• Tagaris, Karolina, 10 July 2018, Heavens, Andrew, 'Oldest known extract' of Homer's Odyssey discovered in Greece, live, 24 March 2019, Reuters
• Watkins, Calvert, 1976, Observations on the 'Nestor's Cup' Inscription, Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, 80, 25–40, 10.2307/311231, 0073-0688, 311231
• Wilson, Emily, 7 July 2017, Found in Translation: How Women are Making the Classics Their Own, live, 29 July 2020, The Guardian, 0261-3077
• Wilson, Emily, 8 December 2017, A Translator's Reckoning With the Women of The Odyssey, live, 6 August 2020, 29 July 2022, The New Yorker, Emily Wilson (classicist)
• Zazzera, Elizabeth Della, 27 February 2019, The Geography of the Odyssey, live, 8 October 2020, 29 July 2022, Lapham's Quarterly
• Zhang, Wei, 2021, Reading Homer in Contemporary China (From the 1980s Until Today), International Journal of the Classical Tradition, 28, 3, 353–379, 10.1007/s12138-020-00558-z, 48698763, 1073-0508, 9 September 2025, 31 July 2025, live

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; Archived 4 December 2024, at web.archive.org.
• 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.
• Li, Sher-shiueh, 2014-05-04, 'Translating' Homer and His Epics in Late Imperial China: Christian Missionaries' Perspectives, subscription, Asia Pacific Translation and Intercultural Studies, 1, 2, 83–106, 10.1080/23306343.2014.883750, 2330-6343, none
• 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"; Archived 12 December 2025, at web.archive.org. Arcadia 50(1):9–36.
• Perpinyà, Núria. 2008. Las criptas de la crítica. Veinte lecturas de la Odisea Crypts of Criticism: Twenty Interpretations of the 'Odyssey' . Madrid: Gredos. Lay summary; Archived 18 June 2020, at web.archive.org via El Cultural .
• Reece, Steve. 2011. "Toward an Ethnopoetically Grounded Edition of Homer's Odyssey"; Archived 1 January 2020, at web.archive.org. 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.)

External links

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
• 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 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