Should I read the Odyssey?
Whether for culture or entertainment or just the description of the wine-dark sea, everyone should read The Odyssey. , history: stories about where you come from...
Was the Odyssey the first Greek novel?
Until the 15th century all volumes of the Odyssey in circulation were in handwritten Greek. In 1488 the first printed version (still in Greek) was produced in Florence. The earliest vernacular translations of the Odyssey from its original Ionic Greek dialect began to appear in Europe during the 16th century.
Was the Odyssey written before the Iliad?
[1] "The consensus is that "the Iliad and the Odyssey date from around the 8th century BC, the Iliad being composed before the Odyssey, perhaps by some decades" says Homer citing Vidal-Naquet, Pierre (2000). Le monde d'Homère. Perrin. p. 19.
Is the Iliad and the Odyssey the same?
The Odyssey and The Iliad are not the same thing, though they are both attributed to the same author.
When did the translation of Odyssey appear?
Since the “Odyssey” first appeared in English, around 1615, in George Chapman's translation, the story of the Greek warrior-king Odysseus's ill-fated 10-year attempt to return home from the war in Troy to Ithaca and his wife, Penelope, has prompted some 60 English translations, at an accelerating pace, half of them in ...
When was Homer translated into English?
The first translation of Homer into English consisted of the first ten books of the Iliad by Arthur Hall in 1581. Hall did not base his translation on the original Greek but on the French version by Hugues Salel published in 1555.
When was The Odyssey translated by Robert Fitzgerald?
1961The Odyssey of Homer (Translated by Robert Fitzgerald) Hardcover – January 1, 1961.
When did Alexander Pope translate The Odyssey?
1725THE English version of The Odyssey is Alexander Pope's 1725 translation.
Why are there so many translations of the Odyssey?
Since the 16th century, translations of The Odyssey have been produced frequently and, as fewer people learned ancient Greek, they have become the primary way that English speakers experience the poem.
Who translated Odyssey at first?
poet George ChapmanThe first translation into English based on Homer's original Greek was by playwright and poet George Chapman, published in London in 1616. Other notable early translators include Alexander Pope (1725–26), William Morris (1887), and Samuel Butler (1900).
What is the best translation of the Odyssey?
The classic translation of The Odyssey, now in a Noonday paperback. Robert Fitzgerald's translation of Homer's Odyssey is the best and best-loved modern translation of the greatest of all epic poems.
How do you cite the Odyssey in MLA?
Citation DataMLA. Homer. The Odyssey. London : New York :W. Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's sons, 1919.APA. Homer. ( 1919). The Odyssey. London : New York :W. Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's sons,Chicago. Homer. The Odyssey. London : New York :W. Heinemann; G.P. Putnam's sons, 1919.
Who published the Odyssey?
The Odyssey | Book by Homer | Official Publisher Page | Simon & Schuster.
Did Alexander Pope translated Homer's?
Pope translated the Homeric poems into "heroic couplets," which are a type of meter conventionally used for epic and narrative poetry. Essentially, the heroic couplet consists of a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines.
Who translated Homer's Iliad and Odyssey?
Alexander PopeIliad, Pope translation Alexander Pope (1688–1744) translated both the Iliad and the Odyssey into heroic couplets. Pope uses the Roman names of the Olympian gods.
When did Pope translate the Iliad?
In 1713 Pope undertook the translation of Homer's Iliad, and he sold subscriptions to support the project.
Did Alexander Pope translated Homer's?
Pope translated the Homeric poems into "heroic couplets," which are a type of meter conventionally used for epic and narrative poetry. Essentially, the heroic couplet consists of a sequence of rhyming pairs of iambic pentameter lines.
Which translation of Homer is the best?
Robert Fitzgerald's translation of Homer's Odyssey is the best and best-loved modern translation of the greatest of all epic poems. Since 1961, this Odyssey has sold more than two million copies, and it is the standard translation for three generations of students and poets.
Who translated the Iliad of Homer?
In 1709, before starting his full Iliad, Pope translated one episode from Book 12, involving Sarpedon, son of Zeus. Pope painstakingly prepared the manuscript for the printer Jacob Tonson (ff. 201r–03r), drawing the typefaces he wanted him to use.
Who translated Homer's Iliad and Odyssey?
Alexander PopeIliad, Pope translation Alexander Pope (1688–1744) translated both the Iliad and the Odyssey into heroic couplets. Pope uses the Roman names of the Olympian gods.
Synopsis
The Odyssey begins after the end of the ten-year Trojan War (the subject of the Iliad ), from which Odysseus, king of Ithaca, has still not returned due to angering Poseidon, the god of the sea.
Structure
The Odyssey is 12,109 lines composed in dactylic hexameter, also called Homeric hexameter. It opens in medias res, in the middle of the overall story, with prior events described through flashbacks and storytelling.
Geography
The events in the main sequence of the Odyssey (excluding Odysseus' embedded narrative of his wanderings) have been said to take place in the Peloponnese and in what are now called the Ionian Islands.
Influences
Scholars have seen strong influences from Near Eastern mythology and literature in the Odyssey. Martin West notes substantial parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey. Both Odysseus and Gilgamesh are known for traveling to the ends of the earth, and on their journeys go to the land of the dead.
Themes and patterns
Homecoming (Ancient Greek: νόστος, nostos) is a central theme of the Odyssey. Anna Bonafazi of the University of Cologne writes that, in Homer, nostos is "return home from Troy, by sea".
Textual history
The date of the poem is a matter of serious disagreement among classicists. In the middle of the 8th century BCE, the inhabitants of Greece began to adopt a modified version of the Phoenician alphabet to write down their own language.
Influence
The influence of the Homeric texts can be difficult to summarise because of how greatly they have impacted the popular imagination and cultural values. The Odyssey and the Iliad formed the basis of education for members of ancient Mediterranean society.
When was the Odyssey written?
The Odyssey was probably first written down around the 8th century B.C. However, scholars believe that it probably existed in oral form for centuries before this, passed down by traveling singers. Nothing is known of Homer, the attributed author, and it is not known if the name refers to a specific person or a group of people.
When did the Odyssey become more widely available?
However, as more English speakers learned to read and books became more widely available in the 16th and 17th centuri es, there began to be a demand for translations of Homer and other ancient works that would be more widely accessible. Since the 16th century, translations of The Odyssey have been produced frequently and, as fewer people learned ancient Greek, they have become the primary way that English speakers experience the poem.
Why is Fagles' translation so popular?
Fagles' translation challenged those of Lattimore and Fitzgerald by focusing on making the work as accessible as possible to a modern audience. While still trying to be as faithful to the original as possible, Fagles' translation is pleasing to a modern ear and easy to read even with no prior exposure to ancient poetic forms. For these reasons, Fagles' version is the most widely available today, though many professors still prefer Lattimore or Fitzgerald's versions because of their fidelity to the text.
What is the beginning of Western literature?
The Beginning of Western Literature. Homer's The Odyssey is an epic poem, or a long poem about a heroic subject, that tells the story of the warrior Odysseus's long journey home from the Trojan War. Along with its companion poem, The Iliad, it is one of the great achievements of ancient Greek literature and considered to be one ...
What is the story of Odysseus?
Homer's The Odyssey is an epic poem, or a long poem about a heroic subject, that tells the story of the warrior Odysseus's long journey home from the Trojan War. Along with its companion poem, The Iliad, it is one of the great achievements of ancient Greek literature and considered to be one of the foundational works of all Western literature.
Who was the first English translator of Homer?
While it was not the first English translation of Homer, it quickly became the most popular, and was considered the standard English version for almost 100 years.
Who is the professor who translated Homer's poem?
Lattimore, a professor at Bryn Mawr College, published his translation just two years after Fitzgerald. His version takes an opposite approach to Fitzgerald's, focusing on a faithful rendering of Homer's poetic form instead of a literal translation of words. The contrasts between Fitzgerald and Lattimore's versions show how translators must make decisions on what to emphasize.
Who translated the Odyssey?
Anne Dacier (née Lefèbvre), who translated The Odyssey into French prose in 1716, among other major classical translation projects (including an Iliad in 1712), was a staunch defender of the value of antiquity, and she argued that her versions of classical literature were more accurate than the “faithless beauties” ( les belles infidèles) of her male predecessors. By insisting on her own “fidelity,” she was perhaps trying to dispel malicious gossip about her personal life; posthumous and unfounded accounts of her life (by men) claimed that she defended Homer’s adulterous Helen because of her own eagerness to abandon her first husband. Her insistence on her own philological “fidelity” also bolstered her authority — an important project for the lone classical “translator-ess” (as she was called: traductrice) in a world of male writers and intellectuals.
What is the difference between Odysseus and Penelope?
Odysseus tells elaborate lies to achieve his goals, whereas Penelope deceives her suitors silently, by undoing her own work. In terms of sexual loyalty, Penelope is praiseworthy because she waits and weeps for 20 years, while her husband’s affairs and flirtations are presented as perfectly acceptable. Female characters are obstacles to the male protagonist’s mission (like the man-eating Scylla, the man-swallowing Charybdis, the man-seducing Sirens, the man-transforming Circe and the man-trapping Calypso) or helpers like Athena and Nausicaa, who aid Odysseus with a little help from their fathers. We are invited to celebrate the male hero’s success in evading bewitching females and foreign monsters, reaching his homeland, outwitting and slaughtering his male rivals, and regaining control of his property (including his slaves, at least those who survive his homecoming), and his subordinate wife.
What does Penelope's vivid account of her dreams allow us to see?
Penelope’s vivid accounts of her dreams allow us to see the gap between her world-view and experiences and those of her husband. And the poem shows us the desperate pain and shock of the murdered slave women who are killed for having slept with the suitors.
Who translated the Odyssey?
The Odyssey , by Homer. Translated by Joe Sachs, Paul Dry Books, 2014
Who was the first literary critic to write a review of the Odyssey?
The first literary critic on record with a review of any portion of the Odyssey is Alcinous, king of the Phaeacians, and the assessment he offers of Odysseus’s art (Book XI, lines 367–374) has been echoed ever since by most of those who have commented on Homer’s own: the story is well shaped, displays and invites thinking, and grabs the imagination and doesn’t let go. But Alcinous offers not only his opinion, but also his gratitude to the storyteller, by choosing to make himself and his people participants in the continuation of the story. With their help, Odysseus finally achieves the return home he has been seeking for ten years; without it, we have been informed by Zeus in Book V, his goal would have been unattainable. But his success comes at great cost to the Phaeacians—more than fifty of their men dead, the end of the activity that has been the source of their greatest pride, and the threat of losing their whole seafaring way of life. All this, Odysseus’s gain and the Phaecians’ losses, comes to fulfillment at the center of the Odyssey, where one man’s ten years of frustration are transmuted into the shapeliness of a storyand the story-book complacency of another people’s existence is relinquished in favor of the risks and uncertainty that ordinarily accompany mortal life.
What is the central event of the Odyssey?
This central event of the Odyssey may seem easy to understand. Odysseus has once more gotten himself out of trouble by landing others in it. He is, after all, credited in the second line of the poem with the destruction of Troy.
What is the turning point of the Iliad?
The turning point of the Iliad comes when Achilles decides to return to the fighting he has kept out of through the events of eighteen books. When he makes that decision, he has no armor, so his goddess mother asks the craftsman god Hephaestus to make new battle gear for her son.
What does thespesios mean in the Odyssey?
It is fairly clear that it is an intensification of another word, thespesios, used more than a dozen times in the Odyssey to mean “divinely uttered” or “infused with a divine sweetness.”.
How many versions of Odysseus' poem are there?
The poem appears in as many guises as Odysseus himself. Somewhere among the fifty-six complete versions published in English from 1615 to 2008, there may be one that loses all the life and feel of the original, but I haven’t come across it yet. Homer’s talent is surprisingly hard to kill.
What is a newly encountered translation of a poem?
Any newly encountered translation of a poem is an opportunity to participate in a fresh reading through a new pair of eyes, and while those readings cannot all be taken in at one view, each one adds something to the sight that occupies the foreground at any moment.
Who translated the Odyssey?
Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, has also translated plays by the ancient Greek playwright Euripides and the Roman philosopher Seneca. Her translation of the Odyssey is one of many in English (though the others have been by men), including versions by Fagles, Robert Fitzgerald, Richmond Lattimore, and more. Translating the long-dead language Homer used — a variant of ancient Greek called Homeric Greek — into contemporary English is no easy task, and translators bring their own skills, opinions, and stylistic sensibilities to the text. The result is that every translation is different, almost a new poem in itself.
How old is the Odyssey?
Composed around the 8th century BC, the Odyssey is one of the oldest works of literature typically read by an American audience; for comparison, it’s almost 2,000 years older than Beowulf.
What is the Odyssey about?
The Odyssey is about a man. It says so right at the beginning — in Robert Fagles’s 1996 translation, for example, the poem opens with the line, “Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns.”. In the course of the poem, that man plots his return home after fighting the Trojan War, slaughters the suitors vying to marry his wife Penelope, ...
What does Odysseus tell his son to do when he returns home?
When Odysseus returns home and kills all the suitors, he also tells his son Telemachus to kill the slave women who had sex with (or were raped by) the suitors. “Hack at them with long swords, eradicate / all life from them,” Odysseus says in Wilson’s translation.
What does Fitzgerald call Eurymedusa?
Fitzgerald calls her a “nurse.” “It sort of stuns me when I look at other translations,” Wilson said, “how much work seems to go into making slavery invisible.”. Wilson, by contrast, uses the word “slave” for Eurymedusa and many other enslaved characters, even when the original uses a more specific term.
What is the opening line of the Odyssey?
I and other Odyssey fans were excited by Wilson’s opening line: “Tell me about a complicated man.” In its matter-of-fact language, it’s worlds different from Fagles’s “Sing to me of the man, Muse,” or Robert Fitzgerald’s 1961 version, “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story / of that man skilled in all ways of contending.” Wilson chose to use plain, relatively contemporary language in part to “invite readers to respond more actively with the text,” she writes in a translator’s note. “Impressive displays of rhetoric and linguistic force are a good way to seem important and invite a particular kind of admiration, but they tend to silence dissent and discourage deeper modes of engagement.”
Is Penelope heroic in the Odyssey?
Some feminist readings of the Odyssey have tried to cast Penelope as heroic in her own way, sometimes by comparing her to Odysseus. “I think there’s so many things wrong with that,” Wilson said. “She’s constantly still being judged by, is she like him.”.
Who translated the Odyssey into prose?
Emil V. Rieu had an enormous hit with his easygoing translation of the Odyssey into prose that launched Penguin's book line in 1946. The version you're more likely to find has been revised by his son, D.C.H. Rieu, to retain its feeling while improving its literal accuracy.
Who translated Homer's Odyssey?
Not every translator tried to meet the challenge of converting Homer's verse into modern poetry. Novelist Samuel Butler continued his Homer project, begun with the Iliad, with an easily read prose translation of the Odyssey in 1900. His translation is also all over the Internet.
Why is the Iliad rarely read today?
Like his Iliad, it was the version for a long time but is seldom read today, possibly because the language of that time appears archaic to our ears. Alexander Pope also carried on from a translation of the Iliad to The Odyssey in 1725 with rhymed couplets in iambic pentameter.
What is the first line of the poem "Lattimore"?
First lines in ten English translations: Lattimore. Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways, who was driven. far journeys, after he had sacked Troy's sacred citadel. Many were they whose cities he saw, whose minds he learned of, many the pains he suffered in his spirit on the wide sea,
When was the Lattimore translation of Homer's Odyssey published?
Lattimore does manage to pull it off in his acclaimed translation of 1965–67. It is both majestic and very faithful to Homer—though perhaps also more of a challenge for a reader who is intimidated by long lines of poetry. It's my personal favourite, but it's not for everyone. You may prefer any of the other noted renderings of modern English translators over the past four centuries.
Who translated the Iliad into unrhymed verse?
Robert Fagles repeated his Iliad success with his 1996 translation of the Odyssey into unrhymed verse with lines of uneven lengths. It seems to be the current critical favourite.
Who translated the Odyssey into unrhymed poetry?
In 1961 Robert Fitzgerald issued his prize-winning translation of the Odyssey into unrhymed poetry with lines of irregular length. It became the standard choice for many years. The 1967 version by Albert Cook uses verse with long lines to accommodate Homer's hexameter but it is not rigid in its rhythm.
Who wrote the Odyssey?
The true authorship and dating of the Odyssey and the other great poem attributed to Homer, the Iliad, has been much disputed. The consistency of language and treatment lends itself to the view that a single author Homer created, or at least consolidated and edited, the literary material.
What is the story of Odysseus?
It is an epic poem, effectively a sequel to the Iliad, written in Ancient Greek but assumed to be derived from earlier oral sources, telling the story of Odysseus’ wanderings and his eventual return from the Trojan War to his home island of Ithaca. The cultural background to the poem indicates a Bronze Age setting around 400 to 500 years before the Homeric literary period itself. The poem contains elements of myth and legend as well as sheer literary invention, and covers the ten years of its hero’s adventures from the destruction of Troy to his return to his wife Penelope and son Telemachus. Of particular interest is the role of women in the Bronze Age culture described, represented in a sense by Odysseus’ guardian deity, Athene, the goddess of mind. Odysseus is an archetype of the person of intellect who uses brains and eloquence rather than brawn to outwit opponents and impress peers, and therefore sets the scene for later Greek Classical culture.
Further reading
Nikoletseas, Michael M. The Iliad - Twenty Centuries of Translation: a Critical View, 2012
External links
Published English Translations of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey by Ian Johnston. Retrieved 16 August 2010.
Summary
Read our full plot summary and analysis of The Odyssey, chapter by chapter break-downs, and more.
Characters
See a complete list of the characters in The Odyssey and in-depth analyses of Odysseus, Telemachus, Penelope, Athena, Calypso, and Circe.
Literary Devices
Here's where you'll find analysis of the literary devices in The Odyssey, from the major themes to motifs, symbols, and more.
Questions & Answers
Explore our selection of frequently asked questions about The Odyssey and find the answers you need.
Quotes
Find the quotes you need to support your essay, or refresh your memory of The Odyssey by reading these key quotes.
Quick Quizzes
Test your knowledge of The Odyssey with quizzes about every section, major characters, themes, symbols, and more.
Essays
Get ready to ace your The Odyssey paper with our suggested essay topics, helpful essays about historical and literary context, a sample A+ student essay, and more.
Overview
External links
• The Odyssey (in Ancient Greek) on Perseus Project
• The Odyssey, translated by William Cullen Bryant at Standard Ebooks
• The Odysseys of Homer, together with the shorter poems by Homer, trans. by George Chapman at Project Gutenberg
Synopsis
The Odyssey begins after the end of the ten-year Trojan War (the subject of the Iliad), from which Odysseus (also known by the Latin variant Ulysses), king of Ithaca, has still not returned because he angered Poseidon, the god of the sea. Odysseus' son, Telemachus, is about 20 years old and is sharing his absent father's house on the island of Ithaca with his mother Penelope and the suitors of Penelope, a crowd of 108 boisterous young men who each aim to persuade Penelope for her …
Structure
The Odyssey is 12,109 lines composed in dactylic hexameter, also called Homeric hexameter. It opens in medias res, in the middle of the overall story, with prior events described through flashbacks and storytelling. The 24 books correspond to the letters of the Greek alphabet; the division was likely made after the poem's composition by someone other than Homer, but is generally accepted.
Geography
The events in the main sequence of the Odyssey (excluding Odysseus' embedded narrative of his wanderings) have been said to take place in the Peloponnese and in what are now called the Ionian Islands. There are difficulties in the apparently simple identification of Ithaca, the homeland of Odysseus, which may or may not be the same island that is now called Ithakē (modern Greek: Ιθάκη). The wanderings of Odysseus as told to the Phaeacians, and the location of the Phaeacia…
Influences
Scholars have seen strong influences from Near Eastern mythology and literature in the Odyssey. Martin West notes substantial parallels between the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey. Both Odysseus and Gilgamesh are known for traveling to the ends of the earth and on their journeys go to the land of the dead. On his voyage to the underworld, Odysseus follows instructions given to …
Themes and patterns
Homecoming (Ancient Greek: νόστος, nostos) is a central theme of the Odyssey. Anna Bonafazi of the University of Cologne writes that, in Homer, nostos is "return home from Troy, by sea". Agatha Thornton examines nostos in the context of characters other than Odysseus, in order to provide an alternative for what might happen after the end of the Odyssey. For instance, one example is that o…
Textual history
The date of the poem is a matter of some disagreement among classicists. In the middle of the 8th century BCE, the inhabitants of Greece began to adopt a modified version of the Phoenician alphabet to write down their own language. The Homeric poems may have been one of the earliest products of that literacy, and if so, would have been composed some time in the late 8th century BCE. Inscribed on a clay cup found in Ischia, Italy, are the words "Nestor's cup, good to drink from.…