The Odyssey

The Odyssey (; Ancient Greek: Ὀδύσσεια, romanized: Odýsseia [odýsseːa]) is one of two major epics of ancient Greek literature attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest surviving works of literature and remains popular with modern audiences. Like the Iliad, the Odyssey is divided into 24 books. It follows the heroic king of Ithaca, Odysseus, also known by the Latin variant Ulysses, and his homecoming journey after the ten-year-long Trojan War. His journey from Troy to Ithaca lasts an additional ten years, during which time he encounters many perils and all of his crewmates are killed. In Odysseus's long absence, he is presumed dead, leaving his wife Penelope and son Telemachus to contend with a group of unruly suitors competing for Penelope's hand in marriage.

The Odyssey was first composed in Homeric Greek around the 8th or 7th century BC; by the mid-6th century BC, it had become part of the Greek literary canon. In antiquity, Homer's authorship was taken as true, but contemporary scholarship predominantly assumes that the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed independently, as part of long oral traditions. Given widespread illiteracy, the poem was performed for an audience by an aoidos or rhapsode.

Key themes in the epic include the ideas of nostos (νόστος; 'return', homecoming), wandering, xenia (ξενία; 'guest-friendship'), testing, and omens. Scholars discuss the narrative prominence of certain groups within the poem, such as women and slaves, who have larger roles than in other works of ancient literature. This focus is especially remarkable when contrasted with the Iliad, which centers upon the exploits of soldiers and kings during the Trojan War.

Many suggestions have been made for dating the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but there is no consensus. Robert Lamberton says that the epics "[straddled] the beginnings of widespread literacy" from the middle of the 5th century BC, but the poems' language can be dated to long before this period. The Greeks began adopting a modified version of the Phoenician alphabet to create their own writing system during the eighth century BC; if the Homeric poems were among the earliest products of that literacy, they would have been composed towards the latter portion of that century.