Edward Garboczi
Tag: Book Review
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Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey, a sequel to The Iliad, is one of the greatest adventure tales of all time, telling the story of Odysseus (Ulysses is the Latinized form of the same name), a very clever hero of the Trojan War. It was he who had the idea for the Trojan Horse, a stratagem that ended the war and, by the way, became a worldwide idiom for something good that conceals something bad. For example, a computer virus that disguises itself as a useful piece of software is called a Trojan virus. Odysseus was a very clever man who embodied the virtues of determination and endurance. He fought in the Trojan War for ten years and then struggled for ten more years to get back home to his wife and son, which is the story of The Odyssey. Many parts of Odysseus’ story have become part of our culture, including fighting the Cyclops, avoiding the Sirens, and steering between Scylla and Charybdis (a rock and a hard place). As an aside, the victorious general of the American Civil War and a two-term president was named Ulysses S. Grant.
The Adventures of Odysseus by Andrew Lang is a prose retelling of The Odyssey for younger readers, with nice illustrations. Lang was a famous collector and adapter (with the help of his wife) of fairy tales from around the world, published in the “color” series, where each book’s title was a color (for example, The Violet Book of Fairy Tales). He also worked on translations and adaptations of Homer’s works. The point of reading adaptations like this one at younger ages is to lead the reader, through the wonder of the story, to eventually read a good translation of the whole epic poem. Homer’s works are a key element of a classical education. But even if this progression never happens, the student reader will at least learn the basics of cultural literacy that are embodied in this great poem.
If a student someday goes on to read the full poem, he or she will find that many quotes from The Odyssey echo verses in the Bible’s book of Proverbs. It is interesting to note that Homer is thought to have written around 700 or 800 BC. King Solomon wrote most of the Proverbs a few decades before 900 BC, and King Hezekiah of Judah had the complete Biblical book of Proverbs compiled around the same time that Homer was writing. A good research project for an older student, which could help unite Biblical and classical learning, would be to look at quotes from The Odyssey and find their equivalents in Proverbs.