# The Odyssey *Homer's epic of the long way home* - Work: Epic poem - Date: c. 8th–7th century BCE - Canonical: https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-odyssey/ > A cunning veteran spends ten years trying to sail home, outwitting a one-eyed giant, a witch, the Sirens and the dead — the template for every wandering adventure since. **Why it matters:** The Odyssey invented the episodic quest-voyage and the clever, flawed hero; its Cyclops, Sirens, sorceress and underworld descent became the stock monsters and set pieces of fantasy and roleplaying games. ## Quick answers **When was The Odyssey first published?** The Odyssey was first published in c. 8th–7th century BCE. **What kind of work is The Odyssey?** The Odyssey is an epic poem in the Myth & Epic and Mythic Fantasy tradition. **Why is The Odyssey important?** The Odyssey invented the episodic quest-voyage and the clever, flawed hero; its Cyclops, Sirens, sorceress and underworld descent became the stock monsters and set pieces of fantasy and roleplaying games. ## Overview The *Odyssey* is the story of a soldier trying to get home. Ten years after the fall of Troy, the Greek king Odysseus is still missing, his house in Ithaca overrun by suitors pressing his wife Penelope to remarry and his son Telemachus struggling to grow up without him. Across twenty-four books and 12,109 lines of dactylic hexameter, the poem brings him back — but not before he has faced a one-eyed giant, a sorceress who turns men into swine, the song of the Sirens, the paired horrors of Scylla and Charybdis, and the ghosts of the dead. If the *[Epic of Gilgamesh](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/epic-of-gilgamesh/)* is the oldest adventure story, the *Odyssey* is the one that taught Western storytelling how an adventure is built: a voyage of self-contained episodes, each a new island with its own peril, strung along a single longing for home. ## Origins Tradition assigns the poem to Homer, also credited with the *Iliad*, but almost nothing is known about him, and scholars broadly agree that the epic grew out of a long tradition of oral performance before it was fixed in writing, probably in the 8th or 7th century BCE. Whether one poet, several, or a tradition stands behind the name — the so-called Homeric question — remains debated. Some scholars have also traced motifs in Greek epic back to Near Eastern poetry such as *Gilgamesh*, another tale of a hero traveling beyond the edge of the known world. The poem reached English readers in George Chapman's complete translation of 1616, and has been retranslated by nearly every generation since; Emily Wilson's 2017 version was the first complete English translation by a woman. ## The story The poem opens not with its hero but with his absence. The goddess Athena rouses Telemachus to search for news of his father, while Odysseus is held on the island of the nymph Calypso. Released at last, he is shipwrecked among the Phaeacians and, at their banquet, tells the story of his wanderings — which is why the most famous episodes are narrated in the first person, as a veteran's tall tales. He tells of the Lotus-eaters, whose fruit makes men forget home; of the Cyclops Polyphemus, a cave-dwelling [Giant](https://www.lanternhall.org/bestiary/giant/) whom Odysseus blinds after introducing himself as "Nobody"; of the witch Circe, who transforms his crew into animals; of a journey to the edge of the world to consult the dead; of the Sirens, whose song he hears while lashed to the mast; and of Scylla and Charybdis. His crew perish one way or another. Back on Ithaca, disguised as a beggar, he tests the loyalty of his household, strings his great bow, and kills the suitors. ## Reception & impact The *Odyssey* was a school text in the ancient Greek world and has never stopped being one. Its afterlife in literature runs from Virgil and Dante to James Joyce's *Ulysses* (1922), and a 2018 BBC Culture poll of critics named it literature's most enduring narrative. Its episodes also flowed east and back again: Sinbad's third voyage in the *[Thousand and One Nights](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/one-thousand-and-one-nights/)*, in which sailors blind a man-eating giant with heated spits, has long been compared to the Polyphemus episode. For fantasy the poem supplied a hero type as much as a plot. Odysseus wins by wit, disguise and lies as often as by strength — the ancestor of every trickster and rogue who talks his way past a monster rather than fighting it. ## Legacy [J. R. R. Tolkien](https://www.lanternhall.org/makers/j-r-r-tolkien/) began his Oxford studies in Classics before switching to English, and although his deepest debts were Northern, the shape of the long road home — a return that finds the homeland itself in danger — is as old as Ithaca. Readers of [The Lord of the Rings](https://www.lanternhall.org/works/the-lord-of-the-rings/) often note the kinship between Odysseus reclaiming his hall and the hobbits' return to a Shire overrun in their absence. In roleplaying games the *Odyssey*'s influence is everywhere and mostly unnamed. The Greek pantheon was among the mythologies statted for early *Dungeons & Dragons* in *Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes* (1976) and again in *Deities & Demigods* (1980). Its episodes are the raw material of countless adventures: the cave of a one-eyed giant, the enchantress's island, the voice that lures sailors to the rocks, the descent to question the dead. The episodic voyage itself — a new island, a new danger, a single long quest binding them — is the structure of a campaign built from self-contained adventures, whether on a tabletop or across a video game's world map. The poem continues to be reinvented on screen. Christopher Nolan's *The Odyssey*, starring Matt Damon and shot entirely on IMAX film cameras, opened in July 2026, nearly three thousand years after the song was first sung. ## Facts - Odysseus escapes the Cyclops Polyphemus by telling him his name is 'Nobody', so the blinded giant's cries for help about 'Nobody' draw no aid. - Most of the famous monster episodes are told in flashback, by Odysseus himself, at a feast of the Phaeacians. - George Chapman's 1616 version was the first complete English translation — the one Keats celebrated in 'On First Looking into Chapman's Homer'. - Emily Wilson's 2017 translation was the first complete English translation of the poem by a woman. - Christopher Nolan's film The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon, was shot entirely on IMAX film cameras and opened in July 2026. - A 2018 BBC Culture poll of critics named the Odyssey literature's most enduring narrative. ## Sources and further reading - [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Odyssey) - [Gods, Demi-gods & Heroes (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gods,_Demi-gods_%26_Heroes) - [The Odyssey (2026 film) (Wikipedia)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Odyssey_(2026_film)) --- From The Lantern Hall (https://www.lanternhall.org/), a museum of fantasy literature and roleplaying games.