Editing Odysseus (section)

== In post-classical tradition ==
Odysseus is one of the most recurrent characters in [[Western culture]].<!--this is cited in much detail below-->

===Middle Ages and Renaissance===
[[Dante Alighieri]], in the [[Canto]] XXVI of the ''[[Inferno (Dante)|Inferno]]'' segment of his ''[[Divine Comedy]]'' (1308–1320), encounters Odysseus ("Ulisse" in Italian) near the very bottom of Hell: with [[Diomedes]], he walks wrapped in flame in the eighth ring (''Counselors of Fraud'') of the [[Malebolge|Eighth Circle]] (''Sins of Malice''), as punishment for his schemes and conspiracies that won the Trojan War. In a famous passage, Dante has Odysseus relate a different version of his voyage and death from the one told by Homer. He tells how he set out with his men from Circe's island for a journey of exploration to sail beyond the [[Pillars of Hercules]] and into the Western sea to find what adventures awaited them. Men, says Ulisse, are not made to live like brutes, but to follow virtue and knowledge.<ref>Dante, ''Divine Comedy'', canto 26: "fatti non-foste a viver come bruti / ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza".</ref>

After travelling west and south for five months, they see in the distance a great mountain rising from the sea (this is [[Purgatory]], in Dante's cosmology) before a storm sinks them. Dante did not have access to the original Greek texts of the Homeric epics, so his knowledge of their subject-matter was based only on information from later sources, chiefly [[Virgil]]'s ''[[Aeneid]]'' but also [[Ovid]]; hence the discrepancy between Dante and Homer.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Magnaghi-Delfino |first1=Paoloa |last2=Norando |first2=Tullia |date=2015 |title=The Size and Shape of Dante's Mount Purgatory |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/281900574 |journal=Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage |volume=18 |issue=2 |pages=123–134|doi=10.3724/SP.J.1440-2807.2015.02.02 |hdl=11311/964116 |hdl-access=free }}</ref>

He appears in [[Shakespeare]]'s ''[[Troilus and Cressida]]'' (1602), set during the Trojan War.

=== Modern literature ===

==== Poetry ====

In her poem {{ws|[[s:Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837/Site of the Castle of Ulysses|Site of the Castle of Ulysses]]}} (published in 1836), [[Letitia Elizabeth Landon]] gives her version of ''The Song of the Sirens'' with an explanation of its purpose, structure and meaning. This illustrates a painting by [[Charles Bentley (painter)|Charles Bentley]] engraved by R. Sands, and showing The Black Mountains of [[Cephalonia]] in the background.<ref>{{cite book|last=Landon|first=Letitia Elizabeth|title=Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=39BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA42|section=poetical illustration|pages=18-19|year=1836|publisher=Fisher, Son & Co.|access-date=5 December 2022|archive-date=5 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205220157/https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=39BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA42|url-status=live}}{{cite book|last=Landon|first=Letitia Elizabeth|title=Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=39BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA44section=picture|year=1836|publisher=Fisher, Son & Co.|access-date=5 December 2022|archive-date=5 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221205220158/https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=39BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA44section=picture|url-status=live}}</ref> A further poetical illustration, also in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837, is to an engraving of a painting by [[Charles Bentley (painter)|Charles Bentley]], {{ws|[[s:Letitia Elizabeth Landon (L. E. L.) in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837/Town and Harbour of Ithaca|Town and Harbour of Ithaca]]}} and harks back to the island 'where Ulysses was king'.<ref>{{cite book|last=Landon|first=Letitia Elizabeth|title=Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=39BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA160|section=picture|year=1836|publisher=Fisher, Son & Co.|access-date=9 December 2022|archive-date=9 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209202628/https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=39BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA160|url-status=live}}{{cite book|last=Landon|first=Letitia Elizabeth|title=Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book, 1837|url=https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=39BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA162|section=poetical illustration|pages=47-48|year=1836|publisher=Fisher, Son & Co.|access-date=9 December 2022|archive-date=9 December 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221209202627/https://play.google.com/books/reader?id=39BbAAAAQAAJ&pg=GBS.PA162|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Alfred, Lord Tennyson]]'s poem "[[Ulysses (poem)|Ulysses]]" (published in 1842) presents an aging king who has seen too much of the world to be happy sitting on a throne idling his days away. Leaving the task of civilizing his people to his son, he gathers together a band of old comrades "to sail beyond the sunset".

[[Nikos Kazantzakis]]'s ''[[The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel]]'' (1938), a 33,333-line epic poem, begins with Odysseus cleansing his body of the blood of [[Penelope]]'s suitors. Odysseus soon leaves Ithaca in search of new adventures. Before his death he abducts Helen, incites revolutions in [[Crete]] and [[Egypt]], communes with God, and meets representatives of such famous historical and literary figures as [[Vladimir Lenin]], [[Alonso Quijano|Don Quixote]] and Jesus.

In 1986, Irish poet [[Eilean Ni Chuilleanain]] published "The Second Voyage", a poem in which she makes use of the story of Odysseus.

==== Novels ====

[[File:Bay of Palaiokastritsa from Bellavista.JPG|thumb|The bay of [[Palaiokastritsa]] in [[Corfu]] as seen from Bella vista of Lakones, considered to be the place where Odysseus disembarked and met [[Nausicaa]] for the first time. The rock in the sea near the horizon at the top centre-left is held by the locals to be the mythical petrified ship of Odysseus.]]

[[Frederick Rolfe]]'s ''The Weird of the Wanderer'' (1912) has the hero Nicholas Crabbe (based on the author) travelling back in time, discovering that he is the reincarnation of Odysseus, marrying Helen, being deified and ending up as one of the three [[Biblical Magi|Magi]].

[[James Joyce]]'s novel ''[[Ulysses (novel)|Ulysses]]'' (first published 1918–1920) uses modern literary devices to narrate a single day in the life of a Dublin businessman named [[Leopold Bloom]]. Bloom's day bears many elaborate parallels to Odysseus's ten years of wandering.

''[[Return to Ithaca (novel)|Return to Ithaca]]'' (1946) by [[Eyvind Johnson]] is a more realistic retelling of the events that adds a deeper psychological study of the characters of Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus. Thematically, it uses Odysseus's backstory and struggle as a metaphor for dealing with the aftermath of war (the novel being written immediately after the end of the Second World War).<ref name="Nordgren 2004">{{cite journal |last1=Nordgren |first1=Elisabeth |title=Sommarklassiker: Med fokus på det närvarande. Eyvind Johnson: Strändernas svall, Bonniers 2004 |journal=Lysmasken |date=14 July 2004 |url=http://www.kiiltomato.net/?rcat=Muu+kirjallisuus&rid=811&lang=swe |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040901194345/http://www.kiiltomato.net/?rcat=Muu+kirjallisuus&rid=811&lang=swe |archive-date=1 September 2004 |language=Swedish}}</ref>

In the eleventh chapter of [[Primo Levi]]'s 1947 memoir ''[[If This Is a Man]]'', "The Canto of Ulysses", the author describes the last voyage of Ulysses as told by [[Dante Alighieri|Dante]] in ''[[Inferno (Dante)|The Inferno]]'' to a fellow-prisoner during forced labour in the Nazi concentration camp [[Auschwitz]].

Odysseus is the hero of ''The Luck of Troy'' (1961) by [[Roger Lancelyn Green]], whose title refers to the theft of the [[Palladium (mythology)|Palladium]].

In [[S. M. Stirling]]'s ''[[Island in the Sea of Time]]'' (1998), first part to his [[Nantucket series]] of [[alternate history]] novels, Odikweos ("Odysseus" in [[Mycenaean Greek]]) is a "historical" figure who is every bit as cunning as his legendary self and is one of the few [[Bronze Age]] inhabitants who discerns the time-travellers' real background. Odikweos first aids William Walker's rise to power in [[Achaea]] and later helps bring Walker down after seeing his homeland turn into a [[police state]].

''[[The Penelopiad]]'' (2005) by [[Margaret Atwood]] retells his story from the point of view of his wife [[Penelope]].

[[Rick Riordan|Rick Riordan's]] novel series ''[[Percy Jackson & the Olympians]]'', which centres on the presence of Greek mythology in the 21st century, incorporates several elements from Odysseus's story. The second novel in particular, ''[[The Sea of Monsters]]'' (2006), is a loose adaptation of ''The Odyssey'', with protagonists Percy and Annabeth seeking to save their satyr friend Grover from Polyphemus, and facing many of the same obstacles Odysseus faced over the course of the journey.

[[Volodymyr Yermolenko]], Ukrainian philosopher and essayist, wrote ''Ocean Catcher: The Story of Odysseus'', Stary Lev, 2017, which is loose adaptation of The Odyssey, where after coming back home to Ithaca, where he cannot find either Penelope or [[Telemachus]], he decides to have a reverse trip to Troy.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Yermolenko |first=Volodymyr |title=Ловець океану : Історія Одіссея |publisher=Lviv: Old Lion Publishing House |year=2017 |isbn=9786176793717 |location=Lviv |publication-date=2017 |pages=216 |language=Ukrainian |trans-title=Ocean Catcher: The Story of Odysseus}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |title=Ловець океану Володимир Єрмоленко купити у ВСЛ |url=https://starylev.com.ua/lovec-okeanu |access-date=2024-05-23 |website=Видавництво Старого Лева |language=uk}}</ref>

==== Literary criticism ====

The literary theorist [[Núria Perpinyà]] conceived twenty different interpretations of the ''Odyssey'' in a 2008 study.<ref>Núria Perpinyà (2008): ''The Crypts of Criticism: Twenty Readings of The Odyssey'' (Spanish original: ''Las criptas de la crítica: veinte lecturas de la Odisea'', Madrid, Gredos).</ref>

===Television and film===

The actors who have portrayed Odysseus in feature films include [[Kirk Douglas]] in the Italian ''[[Ulysses (1955 film)|Ulysses]]'' (1955), [[John Drew Barrymore]] in ''[[Guerra di Troia|The Trojan Horse]]'' (1961), [[Piero Lulli]] in ''[[The Fury of Achilles]]'' (1962), [[George Clooney]] in ''[[O Brother, Where Art Thou?]]'' (2000), [[Sean Bean]] in ''[[Troy (film)|Troy]]'' (2004), and [[Ralph Fiennes]] in ''[[The Return (2024 film)|The Return]]'' (2024).<ref>{{Cite web |title=THE RETURN {{!}} Directed by Uberto Pasolini |url=https://bleeckerstreetmedia.com/the-return |access-date=2024-12-12 |website=bleeckerstreetmedia.com |language=en}}</ref> He is set to be played by [[Matt Damon]] in the [[The Odyssey (2026 film)|upcoming 2026 film]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Chitwood |first=Adam |date=February 17, 2025 |title=Matt Damon Is Odysseus in First Look at Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' |url=https://www.thewrap.com/matt-damon-odysseus-christopher-nolan-the-odyssey-image/ |url-access=limited |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20250217162736/https://www.thewrap.com/matt-damon-odysseus-christopher-nolan-the-odyssey-image/ |archive-date=February 17, 2025 |access-date=February 17, 2025 |website=[[TheWrap]]}}</ref>

In TV miniseries he has been played by [[Bekim Fehmiu]] in ''[[The Odyssey (1968 miniseries)|L'Odissea]]'' (1968), [[Armand Assante]] in ''[[The Odyssey (TV miniseries)|The Odyssey]]'' (1997), and by [[Joseph Mawle]] in ''[[Troy: Fall of a City]]'' (2018).

''[[Ulysses 31]]'' is a French-Japanese animated television series (1981) that updates the Greek mythology of Odysseus to the 31st century.<ref>{{cite web| url = http://www.ulysses-31.com/| title = ''Ulysses 31'' webpage| access-date = 21 June 2016| archive-date = 13 April 2019| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190413011938/https://www.ulysses-31.com/| url-status = live}}</ref>

===Music===
The opera ''Ulysse ou le beau périple'' (1961) by [[Henri Tomasi]].

The British group [[Cream (band)|Cream]] recorded the song "[[Tales of Brave Ulysses]]" in 1967.

[[Suzanne Vega]]'s song "Calypso" from 1987 album ''[[Solitude Standing]]'' shows Odysseus from [[Calypso (mythology)|Calypso]]'s point of view, and tells the tale of him coming to the island and his leaving.

The American progressive metal band [[Symphony X]] released a 24-minute adaptation of the tale on their 2002 album ''[[The Odyssey (album)|The Odyssey]]''.

Odysseus is featured in a verse of the song "Journey of the Magi" on [[Frank Turner]]'s 2009 album ''[[Poetry of the Deed]]''.<ref name="Journey of the Magi">{{cite web |title=Genius Lyrics – Frank Turner, Journey of the Magi |url=https://genius.com/Frank-turner-journey-of-the-magi-lyrics |website=Genius Lyrics |access-date=26 April 2021 |archive-date=26 April 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210426093531/https://genius.com/Frank-turner-journey-of-the-magi-lyrics |url-status=live }}</ref>

[[Rolf Riehm]] composed an opera based on the myth, ''[[Sirenen|Sirenen – Bilder des Begehrens und des Vernichtens]]'' (''Sirens – Images of Desire and Destruction'') which premiered at the [[Oper Frankfurt]] in 2014.

Odysseus appears as the main character of ''[[Epic: The Musical]]'', a [[sung-through]] adaptation of ''The Odyssey'' created by musician Jorge Rivera-Herrans. Rivera-Herrans provides the voice of Odysseus.<ref name="Troy Saga">{{Cite web |last=Rabinowitz |first=Chloe |title=EPIC: THE TROY SAGA Passes 3 Million Streams in First Week of Release |url=https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/EPIC-THE-TROY-SAGA-Passes-3-Million-Streams-in-First-Week-of-Release-20230104 |access-date=2024-11-30 |website=[[BroadwayWorld]] |language=en |archive-date=2024-11-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241113012848/https://www.broadwayworld.com/article/EPIC-THE-TROY-SAGA-Passes-3-Million-Streams-in-First-Week-of-Release-20230104 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref name="Music Review">{{Cite web |last=McKinnon |first=Madeline |title=Music Review: "EPIC: The Musical" |url=https://ndsuspectrum.com/music-review-epic-the-musical/ |access-date=2024-11-30 |website=The Spectrum |language=en-US |archive-date=2024-11-09 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20241109021335/https://ndsuspectrum.com/music-review-epic-the-musical/ |url-status=live }}</ref>

===Comparative mythology and folkloristics ===

Over time, comparisons between Odysseus and other heroes of different mythologies and religions have been made. A similar story exists in [[Hindu mythology]] with [[Nala]] and [[Damayanti]] where Nala separates from Damayanti and is reunited with her.<ref>{{Cite book|author=Wendy Doniger|title=Splitting the difference: gender and myth in ancient Greece and India|publisher=University of Chicago Press|year=1999|isbn=978-0-226-15641-5}} pp. 157ff</ref> The story of stringing a bow is similar to the description in the ''[[Ramayana]]'' of [[Rama]] stringing the bow to win [[Sita]]'s hand in marriage.<ref>{{Cite journal|author=Harry Fokkens|title=Bracers or bracelets? About the functionality and meaning of Bell Beaker wrist-guards|journal=Proceedings of the Prehistoric Society|volume=74|year=2008|publisher=University of Leiden|display-authors=etal}} p. 122.</ref>

[[Parallels between Virgil's Aeneid and Homer's Iliad and Odyssey|Virgil's ''Aeneid'' has evident similarities]] to the Odyssey. [[Virgil]] tells the story of [[Aeneas]] and his travels to what would become Rome. On his journey he endures strife comparable to that of Odysseus. However, the motives for both of their journeys differ as Aeneas was driven by this sense of duty granted to him by the gods that he must abide by. He keeps in mind the future of his people, fitting for the future ''Father of Rome''.

In [[folkloristics]], the story of Odysseus's journey back to his native Ithaca and wife Penelope corresponds to the tale type ATU 974, {{ill|"The Homecoming Husband"|de|Heimkehr des Gatten}}, of the international [[Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index]] for folktale classification.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Clark |first=Raymond J. |date=1980 |title=The Returning Husband and the Waiting Wife: Folktale Adaptations in Homer, Tennyson and Pratt |url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/1259818 |journal=Folklore |volume=91 |issue=1 |pages=46–62 |doi=10.1080/0015587X.1980.9716155 |jstor=1259818 |issn=0015-587X}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Ready |first=Jonathan L. |date=2014 |title=Atu 974 the Homecoming Husband, the Returns of Odysseus, and the End of Odyssey 21 |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/26314683 |journal=Arethusa |volume=47 |issue=3 |pages=265–285 |jstor=26314683 |issn=0004-0975}}</ref><ref>Shaw, John. "Mythological Aspects of the 'Return Song' Theme and their Counterparts  in North-western Europe". In: ''[http://nouvellemythologiecomparee.hautetfort.com/archive/2021/06/29/john-shaw-mythological-aspects-of-the-return-song-theme-and-6324261.html Nouvelle Mythologie Comparée] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211208055934/http://nouvellemythologiecomparee.hautetfort.com/archive/2021/06/29/john-shaw-mythological-aspects-of-the-return-song-theme-and-6324261.html |date=8 December 2021 }}'' nº. 6 (2021).</ref><ref>[[William Hansen (classicist)|Hansen, William P.]] ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=ezDlXl7gP9oC&pg=PA210 Ariadne's Thread: A Guide to International Tales Found in Classical Literature] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230326164807/https://books.google.com/books?id=ezDlXl7gP9oC&pg=PA210 |date=26 March 2023 }}''. Cornell University Press, 2002. pp. 202–210. {{ISBN|9780801436703}}.</ref>