Along with its predecessor The Iliad, The Odyssey is the oldest surviving piece of Western literature and has exerted a profound influence on the development of Western literature. Although very much a product of its period and a reflection of a specific culture and a specific value system, the story of Odysseus' wandering and return has influenced our understandings of heroism, gender, and virtue for millennia, and we can still find numerous obvious traces of Odysseus and his world in our literature and culture today. Many writers and scholars cite The Odyssey as the prototype for the modern novel, written nearly two thousand years before the first "true" novel, Cervantes' Don Quijote. Other scholars note a clear link between Odysseus and more contemporary "superheroes," particularly Batman, who, like Odysseus, suffers from profound trauma and fights against forces he cannot hope to truly defeat. Thus, The Odyssey offers us a chance to investigate the origin of many of the values and beliefs about heroism and virtue that we have inherited from generation to generation for nearly three thousand years. Moreover, it offers us the chance to critically evaluate those values and question the extent to which they still apply to modern society.
This website offers background and contextual information necessary to understand the world of The Odyssey, focusing in particular on the gods and religion of Ancient Greece as well as the conflict that looms over Odysseus' adventure and shadows him wherever he goes.
This website offers background and contextual information necessary to understand the world of The Odyssey, focusing in particular on the gods and religion of Ancient Greece as well as the conflict that looms over Odysseus' adventure and shadows him wherever he goes.