GREEK LITERATURE & CULTURE
Greek Literature and the Tragic Vision
Ian Johnston explores how Greek ideas of justice, divine power, and human freedom shaped the heroic and tragic vision of ancient Greek literature.
Read resource →Classical Reference Library
Essays & Commentary
Resources related to The Odyssey Abridged.
HOMER'S ENDURING LEGACY
Homer in the News
Recent articles, reviews, discoveries and cultural conversations surrounding Homer, The Iliad and The Odyssey
Read resource →ESSAY ON THE ODYSSEY
It’s a New Moment for The Odyssey. The Classroom Is Where It Matters Most.
A New Generation Discovers The Odyssey. This gives educators a new opportunity.
Read resource →HOMER & THE EPIC TRADITION
Lecture on the Odyssey
Ian Johnston explores the enduring appeal of Homer’s Odyssey, examining its narrative structure, its celebration of home and family, and the transformation of Odysseus from warrior to returning husband, father, and king.
Read resource →TEACHING THE CLASSICS
Major Themes in Homer’s Odyssey
A guide to the major themes of Homer’s Odyssey, including homecoming, identity, hospitality, loyalty, temptation, leadership, mortality, divine intervention, and justice, with questions to help students connect these ideas across the poem.
Read resource →TEACHING THE CLASSICS
The Odyssey Is Back in the Classroom. Now We Need to Help Students Read It.
Renewed interest in The Odyssey is bringing Homer to a new generation. The challenge for educators is helping students encounter the poem in an accessible form without sacrificing its language, ideas, and enduring questions.
Read resource →The Trojan War
Who Really Won the Trojan War?
The Greeks destroyed Troy—but victory proved far more complicated. Achilles was dead, Agamemnon returned home only to be murdered, Odysseus wandered for another ten years, and the defeated Trojans lived on in legend. The ancient stories leave us with a surprisingly modern question: if war devastates victors and vanquished alike, what does it really mean to win?
Read resource →THE ENDURING ODYSSEY
Why Odysseus Still Matters 3,000 Years Later
For nearly three thousand years, Odysseus has remained one of literature’s most compelling heroes. His intelligence, pride, failures, endurance, and longing for home still raise questions that feel remarkably familiar: what makes a hero, what does hardship do to us, and what does it really mean to find our way home?
Read resource →THE ODYSSEY
You Speak More Homer Than You Think
You may never have sailed past the Sirens or faced a Cyclops, but you probably speak Homer's language more often than you realize. From odyssey and mentor to siren song, lotus-eater, and between Scylla and Charybdis, discover how a 3,000-year-old poem still lives on in the words and expressions we use today.
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