A mark of a good story is how long it is remembered after it was written. Whether it persists in the mind of a reader so far removed, in both time and place, from where its original author put pen to paper, or words to song.
With Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey releasing on Jul. 17, 2026, and introducing Homer’s epic to a broader audience the world over, here’s an all-encompassing primer straight from the School of Homer.
Along with The Iliad, The Odyssey is part of a larger collection of Ancient Greek poetry known as the Epic Cycle. Comprising eight large epics, they start with detailing the events leading up to the Trojan War until the death of Odysseus. Unfortunately, six of these were lost over the centuries, leaving behind only the second (Iliad) and the seventh (Odyssey) as fragments of the lost relics. They were all written in Homeric hexameter, also referred to as the dactylic hexameter and named after the Greek dáktulos (δάκτυλος), meaning “finger.” Just as a finger has one long bone followed by two short ones, each line is composed of six feet of poetry, with each dactyl consisting of one long syllable followed by two short syllables. Much before they were put to text, these epics were narrated by bards. The Odyssey alone consists of 12,109 lines, so talk about a good memory. Of course, in their original forms, the lyrical nature of the epics, filled with literary devices and metaphors, was easier to remember.
The Homeric Epics are the oldest texts of Ancient Greek literature that have survived to this day, and despite the millennia of time that have flowed, they still serve the same primary purpose of education. Back then, they provided the solid foundation of ethics, society, and of life as they knew it, valuable for scholars and students alike.
According to Plato, Homer educated Greece, with even Alexander the Great carrying around an annotated copy of the Iliad gifted to him by Aristotle. Homer has dominated the minds of the people from 725 BC to 2026 AD, and will likely continue to do so even in 3725 AD. That being said, if we were to hold the character’s actions to light, they may not exactly be the shining examples they were considered to be once upon a time, given that our customs and compulsions have evolved since then.
“Tell me O Muse, of the man of many devices, who had wandered far and wide, after he had sacked the sacred citadel of Troy.”
Divided into 24 Books and set after the lost epic Nostoi, the events of The Odyssey take place after the Trojan War, when the Achaeans (Greeks) make the long journey back home. It’s a non-linear narrative, starting in the thick of things, as opposed to the beginning. In Books I-IV, Odysseus’s son Telemachus and wife Penelope await his return to Ithaca after 20 years, but there’s no sign nor news of him. With Penelope’s suitors camping out at Odysseus’ house, things look bleak, until Athena comes down from Olympus, prompting Telemachus to leave the shores in search of his father.
The second set of Books (V-VIII) jump to Odysseus, as he finally escapes the clutches of the nymph Calypso and starts making his way back to Ithaca.
Books IX-XII, meanwhile, show Odysseus recounting all that happened in the years gone by to the Phaeacians, who rescue him after a shipwreck.
The last set of Books, XIII-XXIV, deals with his return to Ithaca disguised as a beggar and the overthrowing of the suitors who hang around his house like flies surrounding a carcass.
And while that may be the end of The Odyssey, it certainly isn’t the end of Odysseus’ story.
That happens in the lost Telegony, where he falls to the sword of his illegitimate son, Telegonus.
“Mother,” answered Telemachus, “let the bard sing what he has mind to; bards do not make the ills they sing of it.”
Part of what’s so difficult about adapting The Odyssey, though many have tried, is the scale. The Epic Cycle is a vast canvas, or a tapestry woven as intricately as the pall Penelope weaves for Laertes in a bid to keep her suitors at bay. Its threads are many, long and winding, capturing a story that cannot be condensed into one book, film, show, or game. Unravelling these threads will need Penelope’s patience and persistence.
Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026) is the latest in a long line of films that have brought the journey of Odysseus to life on screen. The first one dates all the way back to 1905, a French silent film by Georges Méliès titled L’ile de Calypso ou Le Géant Polyphème (Ulysses and the Giant Polyphemus). This trick film is very short, showcasing a brief episode of Odysseus meeting Calypso and blinding the cyclops Polyphemus, thus earning the wrath of Poseidon for harming his one-eyed son.
Then there’s the Italian silent film L’Odissea (1911) which details Odysseus’ journey back to Ithaca to reunite with Penelope and Telemachus. More recently, there was The Return (2024) which focused on the last set of Books XIII-XXIV, of Odysseus in Ithaca. There are even some episodic adaptations like L’Odissea (1968) and The Odyssey (1997) which relate to a more detailed version of the events in parts. So, there are quite a few screen adaptations, both verbal and non-verbal, which have picked and chosen to highlight some of the larger sections of Homer’s epic.
Long before film, operas told these stories, serving as a direct predecessor and perhaps the most authentic version of how these stories were meant to be experienced.
These include 1640’s Il ritorno d’Ulisse in patria by Claudio Monteverdi, set to a libretto by Giacomo Badoaro, Ulysse et Pénélope, written by French composer Jean-Féry Rebel and premiered in 1703, as well as the French opera Pénélope from Niccolò Piccinni in 1785. . There were also operas that focused on certain characters in The Odyssey, such as Circé by Henri Desmarets told the story of the sorceress who held Odysseus hostage and turned his crew into pigs.
The minstrels of today, not to be left behind, have a more accessible work — EPIC: The Musical, by Jorge Rivera-Herrans, who set out to create a musical inspired by video games and anime. This very detailed Hamilton-esque adaptation has The Odyssey split into nine sagas, starting with Odysseus’ murder of Hector’s toddler son, Astyanax, and ending with the slaughter of the suitors at Ithaca. It’s slated for an animated film as well as two video game adaptations, a long way from its humble beginnings as a senior thesis.
Reading The Odyssey, of course, remains the most accessible way even now. But finding which version of the translation you need to read can feel trickier than navigating the treacherous waters between Scylla and Charybdis. Originally, The Odyssey was written in verse, but it is difficult to translate word-for-word while maintaining the lyrical aspect that makes it so fascinating. There are English translations of The Odyssey in both prose and poetry. Poetry captures how it used to sound but might be hard- pressed to leave out details to match the flow. Prose, on the other hand, might feature more descriptions and elements of the story omitted by poetry, but it loses out on the verse. There are old English translations from Greek and Latin, like the 1616 edition by George Chapman, which mimics the language of Homer’s text, stately, formal and moreover traditional. Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation retains the Homeric hexameter but retells the story in a manner befitting the contemporary audience. Using simpler language and observing the story from a more feminine point of view, this version of Homer’s epic is stripped of the flourishes of its predecessors. So, picking a translation really does boil down to a matter of preference.
Other writers have taken a stab at writing the story from the perspective of one of the many characters in the story. Ithaka (2005) by Adele Geras dives into what happened at Odysseus’s house before the events of The Odyssey. Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad (2005) is a retelling of the hanging of the unfaithful maids at Odysseus’s house at Ithaca from Penelope’s point of view while she’s at the House of Hades. Madeline Miller, meanwhile, thought Circe lacked sufficient motivation or character depth to turn sailors into swine, and that simple trespassing did not cut it. Miller’s Circe (2018) plays fast and loose with mythology and gives the daughter of Helios the modus operandi of self-defense due to trauma from past sexual assault. While both books are strong in their own right, they view the myth from a 21st-century prism with modern compulsions that weren’t present in Homer’s era. For the purists and historians out there, they might not be for you.
Atwood, Miller, and Wilson argue that most translations and retellings of Homer’s myth are by men, frustratingly lacking the female perspective. Coincidentally, Nolan’s film uses Wilson’s version of The Odyssey as the source material, which is part of the widespread criticism that this particular adaptation has received even before its release. The Odyssey is set in the late Bronze Age, the Mycenaean era, but the film itself lacks the color, historical clothing, and armor reflective of those times. That’s precisely why we have multiple adaptations and films to enjoy.
Video games are the only form of modern media that are lacking in adapting this particular Homeric myth. There’s an old-school point-and-click adventure puzzle game called The Odyssey by Crazysoft Ltd, a fun yet educational offering that lets you guide Odysseus himself out of perilous predicaments. But for those who want a closer look at Penelope and Odysseus and wish for a woman-centric take, fear not — Pre-Odyssey: Love at First Quack has you covered. This cute little visual novel, set before the events of the Iliad, has Penelope meet Odysseus while everyone competes for her cousin Helen’s hand in marriage, an entirely different spin on the mythos (with ducks added into the mix). This list would not be complete without the mention of Wishbone and the Amazing Odyssey (1996) featuring Wishbone, the adorable Jack Russel Terrier who gets pulled into the myth, leaving it to the player to guide him through the voyage safely.
“Firstly, then, I will tell you my name that you too may know it, and one day, if I outlive this time of sorrow, may become my guests though I live so far away from all of you.”
The Odyssey doesn’t always appear in the same form — set in Ancient Greece with sailboats, sirens, and slayers of Cyclopes. James Joyce’s modernist classic Ulysses (1922) shifts the scene from antiquity to Dublin. Joyce parallels the events of The Odyssey to a single day (June 16, 1904) in the life of three Dubliners: advertising agent Leopold Bloom (Odysseus), his wife Molly (Penelope) and Stephen Dedalus, Joyce’s literary alter ego, who takes on the role of Telemachus. The Coen Brother’s film O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000) sets the scene in the summer of 1937, Mississippi, with Odysseus (George Clooney) and his crew (John Turturro and Tim Blake Nelson) as escaped convicts being chased down by Sheriff Cooley (Daniel von Bargen), the stand-in for Poseidon. The French Japanese anime Ulysses 31 (1981-1982), meanwhile, takes place in the 31st century. Here, Ulysses (latinized Odysseus) is the commander of a spaceship called the Odyssey, navigating the far reaches of space to find their way back home to Earth.
And what’s amazing is that while these adaptations are so entirely different in setting, they capture the spirit of the original, proving that it is possible to adapt The Odyssey while respecting the source.
Odysseus’s appearances aren’t confined to the Epic Cycle or The Odyssey alone. This is a man who could be found literally anywhere but the shores of Ithaca.
Dante Alighieri confines Odysseus in Hell’s Eighth Circle, Fraud, in the first part of his Divine Comedy, Inferno. Alighieri’s pivotal work featured a lot of known figures, from the historical and mythological to the contemporary (in his time). The denizens of the Eighth Circle of Hell are there because they have deceived people throughout the course of their mortal life. Odysseus, along with his compatriot Diomedes, is kept in Malebolge, where ‘evil advisors’ are confined, his crime being his strategy and ideas used in the Trojan War. Odysseus here did not make it back to Ithaca, but instead journeyed far and wide, falling to a storm at sea. The reason for the departure in his fate is that Dante did not read The Odyssey; instead, he based it on Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphosis, both foundational to his work.
In the video game Hades II (2025), Odysseus can be found at The Crossroads, aiding Melinoë against Chronos’ forces as a master strategist. Scylla, Circe, and Charybdis also appear in the game, and there’s even a side quest that lets you give the characters who populated Homer’s myth some much-needed closure.
“Wife we have both of us had our full share of troubles, you here, in lamenting my absence, and I in being prevented from getting home though I was longing all the time to do so.”
Odysseus and his journey may be a myth for us today, but in Ithaca, there is strong archeological evidence suggesting that he was once worshipped. The miniature bronze bust of Odysseus, a fragment of a tile bearing his name, pottery coins, and jewelry, —among other indications at Agios Athanasio, the site known as the School of Homer in Northern Ithaca — point to a sanctuary dedicated to the mythical king built by the cult of Odysseus. There are even Mycenaean ruins believed to be Odysseus’ palace.
Perhaps it is because at its heart, the central theme of the Odyssey is yearning for home. To be lost for years, wandering unanchored in search of a way back to the place you belong to or the people who cherish you. Homecoming is a simple, universal feeling that we all relate to. The very fact that Homer’s Odyssey is one of the only remaining parts of the Epic Cycle is proof enough that there’s something about it that stood out enough for scribes to preserve it.
Suffice to say that The Odyssey has inspired and will continue to inspire people long after Ithaca’s King has anchored in the fields of Elysium.
