8. The man of many turns

Andra, the first word of the Odyssey, announces a poem about ‘man’. The protagonist’s quest for knowledge, his travels, his suffering, and his determination to return to his wife and child are all themes of universal significance: the Odyssey seeks to define what it means to be human. ‘The man of many turns’ explains that andra also refers to one, unnamed, and puzzling individual. It is difficult to know what to make of him, or even pinpoint his identity. That we are dealing with an Odyssey, a ‘poem about Odysseus’, is something we have to work out for ourselves, as we listen to the poet.

3. Material clues

‘Material clues’ considers the archaeological evidence for when the Iliad and Odyssey were composed, including Heinrich Schliemann’s quest to find Troy on the basis of clues in the texts. The Iliad and the Odyssey refer to material circumstances not found before the later eighth or early seventh century BCE. They describe a distant, mythical past, but are set in a real and recognisable landscape. No interpretation leads to a single original audience, historical context, or specific political agenda, but earliest quotations from, and references to, Homer in other poets’ work prove that by the late sixth century BCE, the poems were well known throughout the Greek world.

2. Textual clues

Little is known about how the Iliad and the Odyssey were composed, but ‘Textual clues’ suggests that we need to understand how oral techniques worked, as well as epic formulae and type scenes, to reconstruct how the poems were composed and to interpret them. They are also crucial in order to understand the unusual language in which the poems were composed. Homeric Greek was developed in order to sing the deeds of gods and men to the rhythm of the hexameter.

10. An infernal journey

Of all his many adventures, Odysseus’ journey to the Underworld is his most extreme. He manages to reach the place most distant from home, and from life itself, yet return even from there. His nekyia—‘dialogue with the dead’—is arguably his greatest feat, and one that has been replayed again and again in literary history. ‘An infernal journey’ describes other ancient heroes who have visited the Underworld: Heracles, Theseus, and Orpheus, and Enkidu, the friend of the Babylonian epic hero, Gilgamesh. For all the difficulties, there is in this Homeric poem, in its protagonist, and his many returns, not just a will to live, but a determination to take pleasure in the tale.

7. The tragedy of Hector

‘The tragedy of Hector’ explains how the death of this hero becomes a symbol for the fall of Troy. It also argues that the Iliad does not allow us to view it only from that general perspective. The poem explores how Hector himself comes to realise that he is about to die and it is through Hector that we are shown in detail what it means to draw ever closer to death. Hector is an impressive character, and yet has flaws, including his acute sense of shame. He deserves sympathy, yet the gods abandon him. The poet gives us unprecedented access to his state of mind, and contrasts his hope with what we already know will happen to him.

6. A poem about Troy

The Iliad is not just concerned with Achilles’ destructive anger. Its ancient title promises ‘a poem about Troy’. It focuses on just a small part of the Trojan War—a handful of days, which do not include the fall of the city, or even the death of Achilles. And yet it does manage to become the poem about Troy. ‘A poem about Troy’ explains how the Iliad offers an intense exploration of leadership and its failures, making it a political poem. It also shows how the poem confronts death, killing after killing, victim after victim, bereavement after bereavement, and thus invites a clear-sighted reflection on the value of life.

4. The poet in the poems

There is little evidence about the person or people responsible for the composition of the Iliad and the Odyssey. Within the epics themselves, however, the voice of the narrator can clearly be heard. That voice was important to ancient audiences and readers, influencing what they thought about the legendary ‘Homer’—and that voice remains important today, not because it reveals the actual author(s) of the poems, but because it characterises the narrative. ‘The poet in the poems’ suggests that two rather different narrative voices emerge from the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Introduction

The Introduction outlines the two main aims of this Very Short Introduction. The first is to facilitate an understanding of the Iliad and the Odyssey, by providing a succinct and up-to-date guide to the main literary, historical, cultural, and archaeological issues at the heart of Homeric studies. The second is to show how readers of Homer join a vast and diverse community of other readers and, indeed, non-readers. The Homeric poems have been the object of study for over two and a half millennia, but many people who never studied, or even read, the Iliad or the Odyssey have also contributed to ensuring the survival and success of these two poems through the centuries.

9. Women and monsters

For all that Odysseus is hard to pin down, several characters try to do so, particularly women. In a poem so interested in pleasure and family, survival and return, ‘Women and monsters’ suggests it is perhaps unsurprising that female characters should be prominent: the loneliness of Odysseus and his constant wanderings suggest that what he needs, above all, is a home. He has one, of course, in Ithaca, but the poem repeatedly hints that he may set up home somewhere else. His story reflects, in part, the concerns of the age in which the Odyssey was composed: the archaic period was a time of rapid expansion, travel, and new settlements.

5. The wrath of Achilles

‘The wrath of Achilles’ outlines the story of the Iliad. Right at the start, the reader is promised a grand poem about a very specific issue: the wrath of Achilles, which brought countless agonies upon the Achaeans. We are told the cause of this wrath—an apparently petty quarrel between Achilles and Agamemnon, ‘leader of men’—and are confronted with its devastating consequences. The Iliad stages a conflict between the best and the most powerful of men: it is also because of this clash between merit and might that that it resonates, at least in part, with the experiences of people of different times and places.