FolioWestern literature

Ancient Greek · Epic poem · c. 725 BCE

The Odyssey

Homer

Odysseus wanders a decade after Troy, delayed by gods, monsters, and his own cunning, while Penelope holds a house under siege. Homecoming is as hard as war.

Nostos epic

Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.
Odyssey I, trans. Fagles

Characters

Odysseus

Man of many turns—liar, captain, husband—whose mind is his chief weapon.

Penelope

Match for his cunning, weaving delay into a politics of fidelity.

Telemachus

The son who must grow a self before the father can return.

Themes

Nostos

Return is not arrival; it is a test of memory, marriage, and recognition.

Hospitality

Xenia sorts the moral world into hosts, guests, and those who devour both.

Motifs

Identity is a story told, withdrawn, and finally proven on the body.

A space of trial where civilization thins to wit and endurance.

Echoes

Other works that share a motif with this one.

In the Folio

The Ordinary Epic
Bloom’s day, Homer’s night, and the heroism of getting home for breakfast.

Set beside

Ulysses
Joyce’s wager is that a Dublin day can hold Homer’s nostos without the gods. Bloom’s kindness is a different heroism from Odysseus’s cunning; Molly’s yes is a different homecoming from Penelope’s test.