Odyssey

The Odyssey (; Ancient Greek: Ὀδύσσεια, romanized: Odýsseia) 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 aoidos or rhapsode.

Key themes in the epic include the ideas of nostos (νόστος; 'return', homecoming), wandering, xenia (ξενία; '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 centres 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 indicates 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 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 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 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's 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

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 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.