Odyssey by Homer

Published -725 · 374 pages · 117,891 words · about 9 hours at an average pace · Literary Fiction, Poetry

How hard is Odyssey to read?

Odyssey scores 56 out of 100 for difficulty on ReadingRate, making it quite demanding. The score is a weighted composite of nine measures: four of how hard the prose is to parse, five of how hard the meaning is to extract.

Vocabulary: 72 out of 100
Similar Homeric vocabulary to the Iliad, with additional terms for seafaring, exotic lands, and domestic life; formulaic epithets aid comprehension.
Sentence structure: 62 out of 100
Complex embedding as Odysseus narrates his own adventures; nested storytelling within oral formulaic structure.
Abstraction: 50 out of 100
More focused on adventure and concrete action than the Iliad; philosophical themes emerge through narrative rather than direct reflection.
Information density: 58 out of 100
Rapid movement through episodes allows less dwelling than the Iliad's battle descriptions; fairy-tale elements keep pace swift.
Narrative indirection: 55 out of 100
Odysseus as narrator of his own adventures introduces questions of reliability; his famous false tales add layers of indirection.
Symbolic density: 65 out of 100
The bed rooted in olive wood, the scar from the boar, Penelope's shroud—potent symbols mark recognition scenes and thematic concerns.
Ironic distance: 55 out of 100
Odysseus's disguises create dramatic irony; his lies and the gap between his reputation and his wandering beggar appearance generate knowing distance.
Resolution withholding: 35 out of 100
Conclusive recognition scenes and the slaughter of the suitors provide full closure, though peace with suitors' families requires divine intervention.
Structural complexity: 65 out of 100
Non-linear narrative beginning with Telemachus, then flashing back through Odysseus's tales, then converging—sophisticated structure that influenced all subsequent narrative.

How Odyssey is regarded

Odyssey holds a literary regard score of 88 out of 100, weighing its place in the canon, its critical reception, its influence on other writers, and the standing of its author. Regard is measured separately from difficulty: a demanding book is not necessarily an admired one.

What Odyssey asks you to hold together

Odyssey sustains Formal (11) on the Model of Hierarchical Complexity: a line between variables. Its highest passage reaches the same stage. Read from the full text, all 229 passages. What the stages mean.

Where Odyssey sits in Northrop Frye's Anatomy of Criticism

Placed by a full reading of the text (396 passages), not from reputation. Each verdict quotes the passage that earned it. On the axis from myth to irony, Odyssey scores 30 out of 100. About the map of stories.

Mode: Romance
I am Ulysses son of Laertes, renowned among mankind for all manner of subtlety, so that my fame ascends to heaven.
Symbol: Mythical (Archetypal)
she at once knew the scar... 'My dear child, I am sure you must be Ulysses himself, only I did not know you till I had actually touched and handled you.'
Mythos: Romance: Quest (Summer iii) (romance iii)
She flew weeping to his side, flung her arms about his neck, and kissed him.
Genre: Epos (Oral Epic)
you have told the story of your own misfortunes, and those of the Argives, as though you were a practiced bard

Where the story of Odyssey takes place

  • After the fall of Troy (1180 BCE to 1170 BCE), the main setting
  • The ten-year siege of Troy (recounted) (1190 BCE to 1180 BCE)
  • The House of Hades (Book XI katabasis)

Scenes in Odyssey that Frye would name

43 sightings of Frye's terms in the text. The strongest:

Anagnorisis, passage 127
I am Ulysses son of Laertes, renowned among mankind for all manner of subtlety, so that my fame ascends to heaven. The poem's central self-revelation: after four books of concealment, Ulysses formally declares his identity to his hosts -- the recognition that pivots the poem from anonymous castaway to hero narrating his own legend.
Sparagmos, passage 135
Their brains were shed upon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood. Then he tore them limb from limb and supped upon them. Polyphemus devouring Ulysses's men raw is the poem's paradigmatic sparagmos -- the hero's company literally torn apart and consumed.
Katabasis, passage 160
the land and city of the Cimmerians who live enshrouded in mist and darkness which the rays of the sun never pierce neither at his rising nor as he goes down again out of the heavens, but the poor wretches live in one long melancholy night The poem's descent to the house of Hades proper -- the definitive katabasis, threshold of the lower world where the dead are consulted.
Anagnorisis, passage 242
I am your father, on whose account you grieve and suffer so much at the hands of lawless men. The central domestic anagnorisis: Ulysses reveals himself to Telemachus after Minerva restores his true form; they weep together 'like eagles... robbed of their half-fledged young.'
Pathos, passage 258
As soon as he saw Ulysses standing there, he dropped his ears and wagged his tail, but he could not get close up to his master The dog Argos, neglected for twenty years, recognises his master and dies on the spot -- the poem's purest pathos.
Anagnorisis, passage 293
she at once knew the scar... 'My dear child, I am sure you must be Ulysses himself, only I did not know you till I had actually touched and handled you.' Eurycleia recognises the boar-hunt scar while washing his feet -- one of the most celebrated recognition scenes in Western literature; Ulysses immediately swears her to silence.

Books that share these scenes with Odyssey

About the author

Homer