Odyssey Study Guide

Book-by-Book Overview

The Odyssey has 24 books, a division probably made by Alexandrian scholars, and they fall into four broad movements:

• Books 1–4, the Telemachy. Athena, disguised as Mentes, urges Telemachus to stand up to the suitors and look for news of his father. He visits Nestor at Pylos and Menelaus and Helen at Sparta. Menelaus reports what the sea-god Proteus told him: Odysseus is alive and held by Calypso. The suitors plot to ambush Telemachus on his way home.
• Books 5–8, from Ogygia to Scheria. Hermes orders Calypso to release Odysseus. He builds a raft, Poseidon wrecks it, and he washes ashore among the Phaeacians. Nausicaa finds him, and the singer Demodocus moves him to tears with songs of Troy.
• Books 9–12, the Apologoi ("tales"). Odysseus tells the Phaeacians his adventures: the Cicones, the Lotus-Eaters, the Cyclops Polyphemus, Aeolus, the Laestrygonians, Circe, the underworld, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the cattle of Helios, whose slaughter destroys his last ship.
• Books 13–24, Ithaca. The Phaeacians leave him asleep on Ithaca. Athena disguises him as an old beggar. He is taken in by the swineherd Eumaeus, reunites with Telemachus, endures the suitors' abuse in his own hall, and wins the contest of the bow. Then come the killing of the suitors and the unfaithful maids, the reunion with Penelope, and finally the meeting with Laertes and Athena's imposed peace.

The adventures most people remember fill only four books, and Odysseus narrates them himself. Because they come from an admitted master liar, some readers ask how far he can be trusted. Homer gives no other account to check them against.

Recognition Scenes and Disguise

The second half is built on a series of recognitions, each handled differently, which makes them a good subject for close reading:

1. Telemachus (Book 16) — Odysseus reveals himself openly, and father and son weep together.
2. Argos the dog (Book 17) — the old hound, neglected on a dung heap, knows his master, wags his tail and dies. Odysseus has to hide a tear.
3. Eurycleia (Book 19) — washing the beggar's feet, the old nurse feels the scar left by a boar's tusk. The poem then stops for a long flashback about how Odysseus got the scar while hunting with his grandfather Autolycus, the man who named him.
4. The suitors (Books 21–22) — stringing the bow and shooting through the twelve axes is recognition by deed.
5. Penelope (Book 23) — she tests him by ordering the bed moved. Odysseus reacts with fury, because he built it around a living olive trunk and it cannot be moved. Only then does she accept him.
6. Laertes (Book 24) — Odysseus first tests his grieving father with a false story, then proves who he is with the scar and the trees Laertes gave him as a child.

Odysseus' "Cretan lies" in Books 13, 14 and 19 also deserve attention. In each he invents a detailed false life story as a Cretan wanderer. When he tries one on Athena herself, she laughs and praises him as her equal in cunning.

Themes Worth Developing in an Essay

The Agamemnon parallel. The poem's first divine speech is Zeus on Aegisthus, who murdered Agamemnon and was killed in turn by Orestes. The story keeps coming back: Nestor and Menelaus tell it to Telemachus, and Agamemnon's own ghost tells it in Book 11. Clytemnestra is a constant foil for Penelope, and Orestes a model for Telemachus. In Book 24, Agamemnon's shade praises Penelope directly.

Xenia tested from both sides. The good hosts (Nestor, Menelaus, the Phaeacians, Eumaeus) mirror the bad ones (Polyphemus, the Laestrygonians, the suitors, who are themselves abusive guests). Even Calypso's and Circe's hospitality turns into captivity.

Kleos versus nostos. In the underworld, Achilles says he would rather be a hired labourer among the living than king of all the dead. The Iliad's ideal of glory through early death is turned on its head. Compare the Iliad study guide.

The ending problem. The ancient scholars Aristophanes of Byzantium and Aristarchus are reported to have said the poem's "end" came at 23.296, when Odysseus and Penelope go to bed. Whether Book 24 belongs to the original design is still debated.

Ancient sources

• Homer, Odyssey — the primary text. Book 11 (the Nekyia) and Book 23 (the bed test) are the most frequently assigned.
• Aristotle, Poetics — praises the Odyssey's unified plot, sums up its story in a few lines (chapter 17), and discusses its recognition scenes, including the scar.
• Proclus' summary of the Epic Cycle — preserves the plot of the lost Telegony, in which Odysseus is killed by Telegonus, his son by Circe.
• Sophocles, Philoctetes — a much darker Odysseus, a manipulator for whom the end justifies the means. Useful for comparing how later writers judged him.
• Virgil, Aeneid 2–3 — the Roman view of "cruel Ulysses," with Aeneas retracing parts of Odysseus' route, including the Cyclops.

Frequently asked questions

How long was Odysseus away from Ithaca?

Twenty years: ten fighting at Troy and ten getting home. Seven of the ten homeward years were spent on Calypso's island, and one with Circe.

Why does Poseidon hate Odysseus?

Odysseus blinded Poseidon's son Polyphemus, then boasted his real name as he sailed away, which let the Cyclops pray to his father for revenge.

Which translation of the Odyssey should I read?

Robert Fagles (1996) and Emily Wilson (2017) are the most widely assigned today. Richmond Lattimore (1967) stays closest to the Greek line by line, and Robert Fitzgerald (1961) is valued for its poetry.

Does Odysseus' story end with Book 24?

The poem does, but the myth continues. Tiresias foretells a final inland journey and a gentle death that comes "from the sea" (Book 11; the Greek can also mean "far from the sea"), and the lost Telegony told how Odysseus was killed by his son Telegonus.