Homer: The Odyssey
The Odyssey must continue to appeal to adventurous persons more powerfully than any other of the ancient stories because, blent with the classic quality of its pure Greek style, there can be found in it that magical element of thrilling romance, which belongs not to one age, but to all time.
The poem of the Odyssey is treated in these pages as the work of a single author, and that author is the same as the composer of the Iliad. It would be manifestly out of place, in a volume which does not profess to be written for critical scholars, to discuss a question on which they are so far from agreed. But it may be satisfactory to assure the reader who has neither leisure nor inclination to enter into the controversy, that in accepting, as we do, the Odyssey as from the same " Homer " to whom we owe the Tale of Troy, he may fortify himself by the authority of many accomplished scholars who have carefully examined the question.
Though none of the incidents related in the Iliad is distinctly referred to in the Odyssey — a point strongly urged by those who would assign the poems to different authors — and therefore the one cannot fairly be regarded as a sequel to the other, yet there is no important discrepancy, either in the facts previously assumed or in the treatment of such characters as appear upon the scene in both.
In the Odyssey by Homer, the main idea would be a life's journey that is filled with obstacles. Odysseus has been at war for ten years and now he has spent ten years trying to get home. The journey has been long and full of trials, tribulations, and obstacles.
William Lucas Collins’s reaction to his own work was shaped by the purpose of the series he contributed to. He wasn’t trying to rival scholarly translations of Homer — instead, he wanted to popularize the classics for Victorian readers who lacked Greek training.
- Author: Homer
- Publication date: 1870
- Editor : William Lucas Collins