An Introduction to The Odyssey

Welcome to the first instalment in our series on The Odyssey, your opportunity to explore the famous work in greater detail and appreciate it from a literary, historical and storytelling perspective. Today, we will be going over some of the key concepts and things to know before we launch into the work. We'll talk about what the Odyssey is and isn't, how it was composed and by whom, what the overall structure and themes are, and how to start you on your own Odyssey through the poem. And unlike Odysseus with his crew, I'm here to guide you and keep you safe to the very end. So, our first question is the biggest one. What is the Odyssey? Well, the most important and sometimes difficult thing to understand is that it is not a novel. In fact, it precedes the concept of the novel by quite a long time. This might seem quite disconcerting when you see it on bookshelves, among the many other books and novels that you're used to, but the Odyssey is in fact a poem. That's right, it's a really, really long poem, an epic poem. And that isn't just a description of its length, it's an entire genre of literature. Now, often when you think of poems, you think of the classic rhyming, roses, a red sort of poem, not 12,000 lines of Greek that form the text of the Odyssey. It's much closer to what we think of as a modern novel, but as we will see, there are many key differences. And just to make things extra complicated for you, because it's not a novel, it's not divided into chapters, and instead we call them books. So, the Odyssey, therefore, is a poem made up of 24 books. But of course, when you pick it up, it's just the one book in your hand. On top of that, of course, it was composed in ancient Greek, so any version you read in English is a translation. As a result of this, we miss out on a lot of the beauty of the language, which doesn't translate across, as well as the metrical rhythms that were part and parcel of its recitation. Nevertheless, the story itself is still deep and rich, even when written English, so I hope you will appreciate it still. Now that we know a little bit about what the Odyssey is and isn't, it's time to think about where it came from. The Odyssey is from a time before publishing, from a time before novels, and possibly even from a time before writing. No one sat down to carefully craft the story, nor did it appear overnight all at once. In fact, it is the result of a process we call the Oral tradition, a type of storytelling where the overall work is delivered spontaneously and verbally, and then handed down from one generation to the next. Before the advent of the written word, this was the most important way to pass on cultural knowledge, and it is still an extremely important practice for many cultures to this day. I'm sure you can imagine how the Oral tradition evolved over time. You've all sat around a campfire listening to stories, or had that one friend who could spin a really good yarn. In the times before you could just pick up a book to read, this was the premium form of entertainment. As settlements in society's grew in size, the storyteller became a prized occupation. From there, skills developed, styles were formed, patterns and rhythms and conventions were born, and with all of these came the bard, the ultimate storyteller, who could recite long and complex poems without missing a beat, and then train the next generation to be even better. We can discover a lot about the way in which these works were developed by the final product itself. One of the hallmarks of the Oral tradition is that, although the overall story remains the same, each telling of it would have been unique. We know that a bard could not have memorized the entire story word for word and rattle all of it off in one go. Instead, they would rely on set scenes, phrases and formulae which they could fall back on, while using their well-honed skills to fill in the rest as they pleased. This gave rise to many of the unique features of epic that we will investigate, such as type scenes and epithets. What this meant was that a bard could vary his story depending on his audience, shortening or lengthening elements to suit their mood, their energy or even their favourite characters. By the time these stories were finally written down, those features had now become a crucial element of the genre and were well and truly standardised. Now that we know a little bit about the nature of epic poetry, it's worth considering how these stories were structured. The Odyssey is a perfect example of how the flexible nature of the oral tradition could be used to great effect. The plot of the Odyssey has a non-linear structure, starting very close to the end of the action, but with a large section in the middle which recalls prior events before then jumping back to the climax at the end. It's likely that a story as long as the Odyssey could not have been told over one night, so it was normal to pick up the story at whichever part the bard felt like on a particular night. From there you could easily jump back or forward in the overall tale. This was such a common practice that it became built into the story itself as Odysseus narrates much of the flashback sequences. On top of this, the oral tradition allowed for many side stories which might expand on the background of a character, the origin of an object or even sometimes a story within a story, where the bard clearly wanted to find a way to incorporate a different tale that they really liked. For example, in book 8 of the Odyssey, the character Demodocus, who himself is a bard, entertains Odysseus with a rendition of the myth of Hephaestus, catching his wife Aphrodite and bed with Ares. This doesn't relate to the story at hand, but it does add a wonderful flavor to the scene, and it places you as the listener right there in the hall alongside Odysseus, listening to this famous bard at work. Now, speaking of Demodocus, it's about time we talked about Homer. The very concept of Homer is as much a myth as the stories we have from him. The most common version of Homer as he was depicted even in ancient times was an old blind man from Ionia in Asia Minor, from around the 8th or 7th century BC. But to say that there is debate about who Homer was is an understatement. The "homeric" question, as it is called, has been a topic of immense scholarly debate over centuries. And I certainly don't intend to settle it here, but I can summarise the key points for you. A good place to start is that the Iliad and the Odyssey have clear indicators that they were the product of the oral tradition, so the overall stories would have developed over many generations and cycles of storytelling. So if there was a Homer, he wouldn't have been the only person to tell the tale. We are also fairly certain, from intense study by some very dedicated people, that the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey were not the same person, as the stories vary in several important ways. But they do fit into the overall style, suggesting epic poetry may have become more stylised by the time these poems were written down. Finally, we know that they were first written down in around the 6th century BC, when Greek literacy levels were well on the rise, and the need for a standardised form of these famous poems was in demand. So where does the concept of "homer" come from? He may have been a complete invention, passed down by bards of many generations to give a sense of legitimacy to their tales. But he may be based on a proper person, either near the beginning or the end of the lifetime of the stories. Or perhaps it was a pen name, invented when the stories were finally set to paper. What is most interesting is that Demodocus, the talented bard featured in the Odyssey, who's given quite a generous description, is an old blind man, which raises the question, was he based on the real Homer, or was the idea of Homer based on him? He's plenty to think about yet, but it's not ultimately worth getting ahead and not so much over. For our sake, we'll refer to Homer as if he were the real author of the text that we have in hand, for ease and clarity. But you are most welcome to continue to question all these things that I've talked about. So we know a little bit about what the poem is, how it's structured, and maybe who composed it. But what's the actual story? Even without knowing very much about the plot or Greek mythology in general, the name Odyssey is fairly evocative in English. To those people, it means a long, wandering journey that eventually reaches the intended destination, with many strange and wonderful adventures on the way. And in this way, you pretty much get the general story of the Odyssey. However, when people get down to reading the entire poem, they are often surprised to find that the actual wanderings of Odysseus' part is only one section of the overall story. In fact, much more of the action takes place after Odysseus has reached home rather than before. And yet, it is the adventure-filled section for which the work is best known and loved. Keeping in mind what we said before, how the oral nature of the tradition often lends itself to non-linear narrative. Let's examine the sequence of events in the Odyssey. One of the most surprising things that people find when they sit down to read the poem is that Odysseus simply does not feature in the first four books. Why is that? Well, for one it serves as a prologue to set the scene back at home while everyone is waiting for him to return, or not. But it's also likely that this section was later added onto the core work to flesh out the story a bit more. Regardless of why, books 1 to 4 focus not on Odysseus, but Telemachus, his son, who has now grown up to be very close to manhood at his home on Ethica in his father's absence. Athena comes to visit him and sets him off on his own journey to gather information about his missing father, which takes him to Pylos, to see Nester, and to Sparta to see Metalayas. He eventually finds out that Odysseus is probably still alive and heads home to await his return. Books 5 to 8 focus on Odysseus leaving his imprisonment at the hands of the nymph Calypso, who lets him go only at the command of Zeus. He then sails across the sea but is shipwrecked by his nemesis beside him, barely surviving only to wash up on the shores of the strange land of the phasians. After meeting the king's daughter, he manages to make his way to their city where he is welcomed heartily and his arrival is celebrated with feasts and games, although he does not yet reveal who he is. Books 9 to 12 are almost entirely narrated by Odysseus himself, as he recounts his exploits to the phasians, revealing his identity and the many hardships he has endured. This is the most famous part of the story, and features all the exciting moments with the cyclops, the lotus-heaters, skiller and carriptus, Cersei, and even his visit to the underworld. Through this narration, he catches all of us up on everything that has happened to him since he left Troy and how he ended up on Calypso's island. After the highs of Books 9 to 12, the action is far more subdued in Books 13 to 16, but importantly, Odysseus finally manages to return home to Ethica. However, the situation is difficult, as there are many suitors trying to marry his wife Penalope, who are quite hostile to the idea of him returning. Athena decides to disguise him as a beggar so he can do some reconnaissance before he reveals who he is. During this, Odysseus meets his old servant, Humayus, and, when telemicus returns home, Father and Son are reunited in a touching moment. The action begins to pick up in Books 17 to 20, as Odysseus returns to his own palace as a beggar, and experiences first hand how rude, insolent and debauched the suitors are, who have been living in his house for many years. His old maid, Ureclair, recognizes him by a scar on his leg, and Odysseus begins to put in motion a plan to get revenge on these evil men for all their misdeeds. The final four books are the climax of the second half of the story, and features the other well-known scene. Penalope proposes a contest for all the suitors, where the winner would get to marry her. However, it's a contest only Odysseus could win, as it involves stringing his bow and firing it through 12 axiots. The suitors all try and fail miserably, but when Odysseus gets a chance he doesn't miss. He strings the bow, shoots the leader of the suitors, and a huge battle ensues. Odysseus telemicus and his loyal servants overcome the suitors in a bloody battle, which ends with all the baddies dead. Odysseus and Penalope are finally reunited, and spend a night together in peace at last. There are a few more shenanigans at the end of the story, but that is essentially the resolution of the plot. It's rare, but sometimes there's a happy ending in Greek mythology. Now that we know the general outline of the story, it's important to think about the key ideas and themes that run through it. Like any great literary work in any language, the Odysseus full of themes, motifs, and important cultural values from its time. When reading through the story, some of these may seem obvious and well developed, while others might seem unusual or overly repetitive to a modern audience. Let's have a look at some of the key themes and try to understand why they are so central to the work. The first of these is the ancient concept of Zenia, a Greek term that we might translate as "hospitality" or "guest friendship". This idea seems more and more out of place in our individualistic modern world, but the Odyssey is entirely concerned with guests and their treatment. By custom and by religious law, a host was under obligation to treat any guest with respect and care, no matter who they were. Guests, on the other hand, were not expected to abuse this, but to form a lifelong bond with their host, and hopefully one day repay the favour. Many different scenes in the story show what happens when this custom is ignored, from the suitors who are bad guests to the cyclops who is a bad host, while other scenes show how it should be done, such as menlius hosting telemicus or the phasians hosting Odysseus. Now, whether Homer was realistically depicting Zenia as it actually happened, or perhaps was being idealistic or educative, is a matter for debate. But it's clear that the concept is central to the entire story. The second major theme is the Greek nostos, from which we get the word nostalgia, which describes a homecoming or a return after a long absence. While this is obviously the general concept of the whole poem, it does show even more specific ways in particular scenes. Odysseus shows his clear desire to return home when we first meet him as he sits weeping upon the shores of Calypso's Isle. Likewise, the true danger of the lotus eaters, whose fruit makes men lose their memories, is that they no longer desire to return to their homes and loved ones. Likewise, the work is also concerned with the homecoming of the other heroes of Troy. We hear directly from menlius and nester, but also find out about the fate of Agamemnon and many others throughout the work. One of the most chilling scenes is when Odysseus meets Achilles Ghost in the underworld, and he tells him that he would give up everything he has achieved and all the glory that he is one, just to be back among the living. It's no surprise therefore that this theme comes up the time and again throughout the work. Now while these two are by far the most prevalent themes in the work, there are many more which crop up time and again. For example, Homer asks us to question the responsibility of characters for their actions, how they contribute to their own downfall and yet often blame the gods for everything that happens. Likewise, the role of the gods and the question of free will returns many times, as we question whether some things are simply out of our hands or we have the power to shape our own destiny. Personal exploration is also important as we discover what heroism meant to the Greeks of Homer's day and examine the concept of Rete, the idea of personal excellence. In the case of Odysseus, this is his cunning and his ability to think his way out of every tight corner. There's also links the idea of personal identity which becomes more important once Odysseus returns home and has to take on a disguise only to later have to prove his identity to his own wife. And through all his travels, Homer presents to us a range of lands and peoples asking us to consider whether they are civilised or not and indeed what it means to be a civilised people. Finally, the idea of justice and revenge recur as we encounter the many transgressions people make. Is it truly just to murder those that have wronged you? These are the questions we will explore as we examine the Odysseus in more detail. So, I hope this has been a useful introduction to the work and a taste for what is to come. From here, we will look at the story in sequence, though you're welcome to start at whichever point you wish just as those ancient buds did. Through this process, you'll hopefully gain a deeper understanding of the text, its broader themes and what it teaches us about the time in which it was written. I'm excited to take you on your very own Odyssey through this epic poem and as always, I appreciate any feedback and suggestions you may have. Until next time, take care.