The Odyssey Wiki

Welcome to the Odyssey Wiki
The Odyssey was "written" by Homer, and is considered to be the greatest epic poem ever written. Homer composed The Odyssey around the year 650 BCE. Homer was believed to be blind and illiterate, so he performed the poems in a chant or a song. A book, or chapter, of the poem would have been performed by Homer during a festival. For a very long time scholars believed that that Homer complied his poems and other's poems through oral tradition. However, recently scholars who where studying The Odyssey noticed that the writing style was very similar and consistent. This led that scholars to the conclusion that Homer improvised the entire story. But how did the poem go from being improvised to its final form? Homer used a specific vocabulary that was made up of a mixture of dialects. (Think of northern and southern accents. The same words with slightly different silables.) Homer used his knowledge of greek language from all over Greece to fit into the format of the dactylic hexameter. (The style of poetry.) He also thought of the next line when he was reciting the line that he was on. (Think of breathing in through your nose while breathing out through your mouth, its really hard!) It was said that he never made a mistake! He preformed a book with many different word combinations. When he thought that he had the best combinations of verses he would have scribes right it down. His two epic poems, The Iliad and The Odyssey took a lifetime to write.

= Archetypal Concepts:= Heros journey, Father/son archetypal pattern, Pure woman, Wise man, Monster, Internal vs. external journey, Villain, Impure Woman

=Characters:= Telemachus, Penelope, Odysseus, Antious, Terisias, Circe, Calypso, Polyphemus, Scylla/Charybdis, Athena, Poseidon

=Locations:= Ogygia, Olympus, Ithaca, Troy, Land of the Lotus Eaters, Aeolia, Aeaea, Land of the Dead, Cyclop's Island, Skeria, Laestrygonia

Time line (in order):
Book 1, book 5, book 9, book 10, book 11, book 12, book 13, book 14, book 16, book 18, book 19, book 20, book 21, book 22, book 23, book 24

Time line (in the book):
book 9, book 10, book 11, book 12, book 1, book 5, book 13, book 14, book 16, book 18, book 19, book 20, book 21, book 22, book 23, book 24