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Invitation to World Literature

The Odyssey The Odyssey – Getting Started

The Long Journey Home

The Odyssey may be familiar to you — almost every high school English teacher in the United States assigns some part of the epic for students to read. You may have read a few episodes—Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, Odysseus killing the suitors—or you may have read the whole thing. If you did read the whole thing, you most likely either remember some of it or none of it. It’s a very long story, and when you’re under a deadline (“read 80 pages for tomorrow”) you don’t really have time to read for enjoyment.

Here you get the chance to read The Odyssey on your own terms and on your own schedule. If ever there were a story that demanded a relaxed reader, it’s The Odyssey. You’re on a ten-year journey with Odysseus, and each island he and his steadily shrinking crew land on introduces a new story. Trying to gun through it just so you can say you’re done will produce no feelings of interest, joy, or sorrow—which means the whole point of an epic poem has been missed. There’s no obligation to start at page one and read to the conclusion. Just as you do on any journey you make, keep an eye out for adventure, choose the adventures you want to take part in, and enjoy them to the fullest.

Emily Greenwood
Associate Professor of Classics, Yale University:

“From the time which it began to circulate in the Greek world, The Odyssey was acknowledged as a traveler’s text. So Alexander the Great, when he set off to Egypt, had a copy of The Odysseywith him. Lawrence of Arabia is the other classic explorer who is famous for citing The Odysseyas his inspirational text. I’ve heard it said The Odyssey was a text that Columbus traveled with, and that in addition to the Bible, it was one of his master narratives for his New World exploration. There’s seldom a period when The Odyssey falls out of view.”

Basic Timeline



Trojan War


The “Dark Age” of Greece, about which we know very little


First use of the Phoenician alphabet in Greece

Late 700s-early 600s




The Odyssey is copied and preserved by scholars of the Byzantine Empire




The Odyssey is translated into English









The language of the Homeric poets was not like the spoken Greek of their time. It was literary and archaic, filled with metaphors and ornate ways of writing, and words that were literary in origin and some of which may have become outdated. All the same, passages from the Homeric works were on the tongues of the Greek people who loved them. Think of Homeric language as Shakespearean: We recognize it as English, we can make sense of it, and parts of it speak to us with their poetic power—we can even memorize long passages like the “To be or not to be” soliloquy of Hamlet—but we would never speak like Shakespeare’s characters do in our own daily lives.


Epithets are an important component of the poem. These are the adjectives that describe people and things. You’ll notice that a single place or person or thing has many different epithets: Odysseus’ home island of Ithaca is described as rocky, seagirt, and clear skied. Ships can be hollow, swift, black, well benched, well oared, scooped out, fast moving, or black prowed. Odysseus himself is much-enduring, brilliant, and a man of many schemes.






This great goddess of wisdom and war is Odysseus’ special guardian and advisor. She helps both Odysseus and Telemachus on their journeys, and takes Odysseus’ side when the gods condemn him. She eventually sees Odysseus safely home.


Odysseus’ father has given himself over to grief for his only son whom he thinks is dead. He lives like a slave in rags, removed from society. Odysseus will reveal himself to Laertes on his return to Ithaca, but only after challenging Laertes’ unheroic appearance and waking the old man up to his responsibilities as a leader. Father will join son in fighting against the fathers of the slain suitors at the end of the book.



Odysseus, Greek soldier at Troy and ruler of Ithaca





Odysseus’ son has no memory of his father, who left for Troy when Telemachus was an infant. The young man tries to cast out the terrible suitors living in his father’s house, but while valiant, he is too young. He makes his own journeys to find the strength and wisdom to become a great man like his father.

Recommended Translations & Editions




The greatest of the Greek warriors at Troy, Achilles deliberately chose a short life and a hero’s death over a long life of average distinction. He meets Odysseus in the underworld, where his existence seems very grim. But Achilles is glad when Odysseus tells him that Achilles’ son has carried on as a hero in battle on earth, leading to his own likely early death.


The king of Mycenae and leader of the Greek army at Troy. Unlike Odysseus, Agamemnon was betrayed by his wife. She took a lover while Agamemnon was fighting at Troy, and together they killed Agamemnon when he returned home. His spirit meets with Odysseus in Hades.


The worst of the suitors and the first to die by Odysseus’s hand.


Daughter of Zeus and goddess of wisdom and battle. Athena is Odysseus’ patroness, and she helps him and his son Telemachus through their trials, eventually bringing Odysseus home to Ithaca.


The nymph who falls in love with Odysseus when he lands on her island, and who keeps him prisoner there for seven years as her lover until Zeus sends the god Hermes to tell her to let Odysseus go. The Odyssey begins at this point in the story, and earlier events are told in flashbacks.


A goddess who turns Odysseus’ crew into pigs, then keeps Odysseus on her island as her lover for a year.


The island kingdom of Odysseus.


King of Sparta, Menelaus is Agamemnon’s brother. His wife Helen was spirited to Troy, thus causing the Trojan War when the Greeks go to get her back. Now back home, Menelaus helps Telemachus in his journey.


The Phaeacian princess who finds Odysseus washed up on the shore of her home and convinces her father to allow Odysseus safe passage back to Ithaca in Phaeacian ships.


Ruler of Ithaca, Greek veteran of the Trojan War. Sentenced by Poseidon to be kept from his home and family for ten years after the war, Odysseus is constantly hampered in his return by gods, goddesses, monsters, and the weather, overcoming all with his wit and determination.


Wife of Odysseus, Penelope spends ten years fending off the 108 men who clamor for her hand in marriage. She remains faithful to her husband, for whom she is a match when it comes to wit and cleverness.

Polyphemos the Cyclops

Son of Poseidon, Polyphemos does not observe the laws of hospitality when Odysseus lands on his island. He imprisons Odysseus and his men and plans to eat them all. Odysseus escapes by blinding the Cyclops, thus earning Poseidon’s wrath.


God of the oceans, he curses Odysseus for blinding his son, Polyphemos the Cyclops. Poseidon enlists the help of gods and nature to keep Odysseus from returning home.


Creatures whose song is so beautiful no human man can resist it; they sing to sailors, luring their boats to crash on the rocky shores of their island. Odysseus has his men tie him to the mast of his ship and cover their own ears as they sail past, so that Odysseus can hear the song without dying.

The Suitors

The 108 men living in Odysseus’ palace at Ithaca for ten years, waiting for Penelope to accept one of them as her husband. They break the laws of hospitality by ruining Odysseus’ kingdom, eating everything in sight and laying the palace and the land to waste with their selfishness. They are also rude to Telemachus and disrespectful of Penelope, which guarantees their destruction when Odysseus returns home.


A great, blind prophet whom Odysseus meets in the underworld (Hades) and who tells him how to get back to Ithaca and how to communicate with the spirits of the dead.


Odysseus’ son. Telemachus was just an infant when his father left to fight the Trojan War, but he realizes he cannot wait for his father’s return to take control of his own fate and become a man in his own right.


The great city on the coast of Asia Minor (today’s Turkey) and to the east of Greece where the Trojan War was fought to return Helen to her husband Menelaus.


Greatest of all gods, Zeus sometimes helps Odysseus but allows Poseidon to dam up the harbor of the Phaeacians who have finally given Odysseus a ship in which to go home.

Series Directory

Invitation to World Literature


Produced by the WGBH Educational Foundation with Seftel Productions. 2010.
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  • ISBN: 1-57680-892-0