Editing Odyssey (section)

=== Geography ===
{{Main|Homer's Ithaca|Geography of the Odyssey}}

Scholars are divided on whether any of the places visited by Odysseus are real.{{sfn|Fox|2008}} The events in the main sequence of the ''Odyssey'' (excluding Odysseus's [[Story within a story|embedded narrative]] of his wanderings) have been said to take place across the [[Peloponnese]] and the [[Ionian Islands]].<ref name="auto">[[Strabo]], ''[[Geographica]]'', 1.2.15, cited in {{harvnb|Finley|1976|p=33}}</ref> Many have attempted to map Odysseus's journey, but largely agree that the landscapes—especially those described in books 9 to 11—include too many mythical elements to be truly mappable.<ref name="Zazzera">{{Cite web |last=Zazzera |first=Elizabeth Della |date=27 February 2019 |title=The Geography of the Odyssey |url=https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/geography-odyssey |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201008231344/https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/geography-odyssey |archive-date=8 October 2020 |access-date=29 July 2022 |website=Lapham's Quarterly}}</ref> For instance, there are challenges ascertaining whether Odysseus's homeland of Ithaca is the same island that is now called {{Langx|grc|Ithakē|label=none|italic=yes}} (modern Greek: {{Langx|grc|Ιθάκη|label=none}});<ref name="auto" /> the same is true of the route described by Odysseus to the Phaeacians and their island of [[Scheria]].{{sfn|Fox|2008}} British classicist [[Peter Jones (classicist)|Peter Jones]] writes that the poem was likely updated many times by oral story-tellers across several centuries before it was written down, making it "virtually impossible" to say "in what sense [the poem] reflects a historical society or accurate geographical knowledge".{{Sfn|Jones|1996|p=xi}} Modern scholars tend to explore Odysseus's journey metaphorically rather than literally.{{Sfn|Pache|Dué|Lupack|Lamberton|2020|pp=275}}