Odysseus
Wandering king
- Wants
- To get home, and to be the one who tells the story of getting there.
- Undone by
- He cannot resist an opportunity to be clever in front of an audience.
← The library
EpicClassical · c. 700 BCStudy guide · no full textDemanding
The Odyssey
Homer →The first great narrative about postponement: the hero's real struggle is not monsters but time.
Study guide
This work is still in copyright, so there is no full text on the page. What you get instead: the context, the cast, the ideas and the themes — enough to read it well, and to know exactly what to watch for in the first thirty pages.
“Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns.”
The castFull atlas →
Penelope
Queen, waiting
- Wants
- To keep her household intact until she is certain there is someone to keep it for.
- Undone by
- She has turned delay into a system, and systems can outlast their purpose.
Now read the first page with all of this in mind.
The notes here are the map; the book is the journey.