The Odyssey

The Odyssey tends to be blander in expression and sometimes more diffuse in the progress of its action, but it presents an even more complex and harmonious structure than the Iliad. The main elements are the situation in Ithaca, where Penelope, Odysseus’ wife, and their young son, Telemachus, are powerless before her arrogant suitors as they despair of Odysseus’ return from the siege of Troy; Telemachus’ secret journey to the Peloponnese for news of his father, and his encounters there with Nestor, Menelaus, and Helen; Odysseus’ dangerous passage, opposed by the sea-god Poseidon himself, from Calypso’s island to that of the Phaeacians.