THE
ODYSSEY
Although set within the circumstances of the Trojan War, Homer's
Odyssey is a far
different book from his
Iliad. With the latter, the book itself as well as the archaeological
excavations supporting it makes it reasonable to infer a real historical event as
background. With the
Odyssey, such an assumption is impossible.
The book is a tale of adventure at sea and of homecoming after a long absence.
These two themes have pervaded Western literature ever since the Homeric epic was
written, and the story may well have proved a popular one well before Greek history
began. The story could just as well have stood on its own without any relation to the
conflict of the Greeks with Troy.
The vividly fictional characteristics of the story have not prevented critics, past and
present, from seeking to place it in a specific geographic context. Hesiod, who wrote later
than Homer, believed that Odysseus and his ships sailed around in the general area of
Italy and Sicily, to the west of Ithaca. Later analysts tried to set the wanderings within the
Mediterranean Sea generally, while others suggested the Atlantic Ocean as more likely.
The ancient astronomer Eratosthenes, who lived in the 2nd century BC, regarded all
such speculations as foolish. For him, the world of Odysseus was a completely imaginary
one. Indications of this are found within the text itself. Some of the hero's wanderings
could well have been based on the even older story of Jason and his Argonauts, who
sailed east in search of the golden fleece. To sum up, in the case of the
Odyssey, it is
quite likely that several ancient legends were woven into one continuous epic.
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