Odyssey - scholars

Simon Goldhill

“Odyssey 6 is often read as a romantic tale”

Adrian Kelly

“a real risk in these scenes that the hero will become deflected from his return and remain in the eternal netherworld”

Angus Bowie

“mostly the bad guys who do the laughing”

Peter Jones

“this sort of ‘plan’ is obviously very useful for an oral poet”

Barbara Grazios

“they consistently fail to behave in the dignified manner we would expect”

Karen Ni Mheallaigh

“telling of stories in the Odyssey is a way of exploring how the poem’s story of Odysseus’ homecoming is itself told”

Robert Fowler

“gifts of clothes actually seem to mark stages in the story’s progress”

Penelope Murray

“why reject a life of ease … in order to return to an ageing wife and a life of responsibility?”

Samuel Butler

the Odyssey was written by a woman, whose aim was “to exalt her sex by showing how a clever woman can bring any number of men to her feet, hoodwink them, spoil them, and in the end destroy them'“

Bruce Karl Braswell

“paint a moral contrast in a specific context”

Jasper Griffin

Emily Wilson

Sam Gartland

“switch from omnipotent poet to one man’s interpretation of events”

Hannah Rosenfelder

“a case of seductive feminine song threatening male action and purpose”

Jamie Hardie

“Penelope’s disguises are even more subtle and nuanced than those of her husband”

De Jong and Bakker

“Odysseus is a secondary narrator to his own story”

West

Rosie Wyles