Where Did Odysseus Really Travel to in Homer’s Odyssey?

Greek Reporter ^ | May 3, 2025 | Caleb Howells

[nickcarraway]

He had a prototype of a typewriter.

[PeterPrinciple]

Poets didn’t write, back then it was all told from memory.

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and because it was told from memory it used vivid words, pictures to tell the story.

They would imagine a room for example, have different objects in the room would remind of parts of the story. The teller would walk through the story in his mind.

We ,if doing it right. will create a word picture or emotion to help us remember a name.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

I was just thinking this. And why gender theory isn’t more popular.

[virgil]

One of my favorite stories. What about Scylla and Charybdis? I always thought that was the strait of Messina. And what about the island of Calypso?

[PIF]

There is as real Netherworld in Italy. See Robert Temple's Netherworld

[nickcarraway]

Penelope. She told suitors she’d be ready to be courted when she weaved a burial shroud for her husband, but she unraveled it every night.

[1066AD]

This would take him to the coast of Africa, far west of Egypt, perhaps to Tunisia.

I worked I Tunisia in early 1970s and we were told the island of Djerba was the Ilead’s Isle of the Lotus Eaters.

[Larry Lucido]

Wife: And where have YOU been Mr Greek warrior?

Odysseus (in Sam Kinison voice): Not that you would care, but I was blown off course by heavy winds, and I was attacked by monsters!! Oh oh ooooohhhhh!!!

[Verginius Rufus]

We don't know if there was a real person named Odysseus.

If I remember correctly, 7 of the 10 years after the fall of Troy were spent on Calypso's island--she wouldn't let him leave.

[FLT-bird]

Its not BCE. There is no “common era”. Its Before Christ.

This Agnostic will happily tell everyone so.

Change in western terminology rejected.

[odawg]

“Poets didn’t write, back then it was all told from memory.”

Yes, I heard that but I don’t believe it. The ancient poets, earlier than that, wrote their poetry down. The Egyptians wrote literature strictly for entertainment and we still have them. In fact, all the earlier civilizations wrote in poetry but the Egyptians wrote in prose, which is why we have the Old Testament in prose. The Israelites picked up the method from the Egyptians.

700 B C would be approximately about the time of the Book of Judges in Israel’s history, more or less.

And it is obvious to me Homer wrote down his writings himself.

Homer’s writngs were the Greek’s scripture, and they used his writings as textbooks in school and developed a great civilizaton with them.

[bakeneko]

The real literary question is whether or not Odysseus actually went to any of these places or did any of these things.

The ‘travels’ portion of the Odyssey is only four books out of twenty-four. Odysseus, a known liar, is telling this story to the gullible Phaiakians, who aren’t really the brightest bulbs in Greece. None is this journey stuff is narrated in third person.

Odysseus is like “Well I’m about to get home; I’ve got to get my story straight about how I left Ithaca with all its best men and ten warships, and yet they’re all dead, and I, their commander, am the only one left alive.”

[gwjack]

There is a major movie that is scheduled to be released this summer or next. I am curious as two of my Malinois are named Charybdis, and Scylla. I couldn’t bring myself to name the third Polyphemus so I named her Cerberus. I am looking forward to the movie. I read the book in HS and an English Lit class in college.

Gwjack

[reasonisfaith]

It is impossible to use “BCE” and be taken seriously.

If anyone thinks they can take such a person seriously, it’s because they are themselves not a serious thinker.

[Fiji Hill]

"In the seventh century BCE BC, the Greek poet Homer wrote the Odyssey."

FIFY

[Fiji Hill]

I read it when I was a student at Darmstadt American High School in Darmstadt, Germany and found it to be a fascinating because many of the places Odysseus visited were only a few hundred miles away. The teacher was a rookie, but nonetheless, she was effective in getting us interested in the story, and we used names like Scylla, Charybdis, etc., as insults.

In college, I read The Odyssey twice.

[FreedomPoster]

When I see that, I say Oh! Before the Christian Era!

[rlmorel]

I didn’t like it, just watched it recently.

In my opinion, they made Odysseus out to have some kind of PTSD, he was a broken man who had to be prodded into action.

As I watched it, I thought WTF? This isn’t how I remember Odysseus from the book!

So I went back and re-read the book just to be sure I wasn’t remembering it incorrectly.

I like Ralph Fiennes as an actor, and there were a few things to like about the movie, but it was not what I hoped.

I am a bit discouraged-I love the story, but...I have not seen a version yet that does it justice, and I am not hopeful for the one coming out, although I suspect we may finally see some great looking special effects for the Cyclops and other things.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

I figured it wasn’t faithful to the original. My standards for movies these days have gotten more relaxed. To me, any movie that doesn’t have gender deranged people in it is passable.

[Steven Tyler]

Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale,
A tale of a fateful trip
That started from this tropic port
Aboard this tiny ship.

The mate was a mighty sailing man,
The skipper brave and sure.
Five passengers set sail that day
For a three hour tour, a three hour tour...........