One of the best-known and most influential of the Greek epics, The Odyssey tells the story of Greek hero Odysseus and his ten-year journey home to Ithaca after the fall of Troy. Homer’s The Odyssey—along the preceding work The Illiad— are distinguished as the oldest extant works of Western literature, and are fundamental to the modern Western canon. Innumerable works of literature, theater, and poetry have been written based on or responding to The Odyssey, such as one of the most inventive and important novels of the twentieth century, James Joyce’s Ulysses—a direct parallel of The Odyssey.
The Harvard Classics
Journey through “Dr. Eliot’s Five Foot Shelf.” This massive collection, designed to provide the elements of a liberal education, was compiled by distinguished Harvard University president Charles Eliot in the early 1900s. Packed with the essential works of the Western classical tradition, the Harvard Classics collection remains one of the most comprehensive and well-researched anthologies of all time—a must-have library for students and lovers of the classics.
