Ancient Greek philosopher Homer’s Odysseia epic came first in the 100 Stories that Shaped the World. Why is it still effective today for thousands of years?
Homer’s Odysseia epic is one of the works that are thought to deserve the best story ever created by humanity. The epic, composed of sixteen strings, specific to Greek epics, and a total of 12,000 verses, witness the adventures of the cunning hero Odysseus after the Trojan War. This epic was seen as a cultural culmination for thousands of years.
Many writers from Dante to James Joyce and Margaret Attwood were inspired by the Odysseia epic. Yet Odysseus, his hero, was trying to achieve something ordinary among the many gods and monsters mentioned in the epic. What he wanted to do was not discover something new or spectacular, but go home after a 10-year war.
This is why this work has such an important place in our culture, even today, 2700 years after it was written. The story is both large and private, with a wide scope, but with even the smallest details (describing the softness of flowers, sheep feathers, etc., grown in front of Kalypso’s cave).
The epic story tells of what it means to be a man who has lost all the things that had previously created him. Odysseus is a husband away from his wife, a father who cannot see his sons growing up, a soldier whose war is over, a separate king from his country, a leader who has lost his sons, and the son of a mother who dies in heart pain; he is a passenger, pirate, adventurer and refugee.
Also in this epic lies, exaggeration and bragging fly here and there, and the feature of story telling is asked to the audience. Odysseus’ story is sometimes told by himself, sometimes by bards, sometimes by himself as a bard and by exaggerating his adventures. Only Siren hears the song; his men blocked his ears with wax; because Siren’s song drags people to death.
The Odysseia epic covers a 10-year period in which the hero Odysseus recounts his return from Troy to his hometown of Ithake. But the narrative in the epic starts from the 10th year. Odysseus lives with the sea nymph Kalypso on the island of Ogygia, staring at the horizon and dreaming of the day he will return home.
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