Overview

The Odyssey is an ancient Greek epic about the challenges and hardships Odysseus faces in his rambling ten-year journey homeward after the Trojan War and in the days following his arrival on the island of Ithaka, his homeland. Depicting his own and others’ social displacement after the war, and describing his successive challenges against human, natural and supernatural adversaries, the epic dramatizes his problematic process of healing from the trauma of war and his slow, arduous attempt to recover a sense of personal identity among his people, his wife, his son, and others who have longed for his return. In depicting the struggles of Odysseus, his wife Penelope, and his son Telemakhos, as well as key minor characters such as the slaves Eurykleia and Eumaios, in response to their social displacement, The Odyssey offers us literature’s first full-length narrative focused on the everyday heroism of ordinary human beings in the face of implacable misfortune and adversity.

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I admire this translation greatly. It has real precision without being stilted, retains just enough formal diction while being flexible and idiomatic, and achieves a real (and rarely caught) conversational tone--the essence of Homeric muthos. There were also some moments when a choice of adjective (e.g. raw to translate stugeroisin at Od.11.81) sent me back to the text with some skepticism, but allowed me to return with a new appreciation for the possibilities of meaning inherent in the Greek. All in all, this is a powerful and fresh interpretation (all translations being readings). The introduction, meanwhile, from Underwood's distinctive ethnographic standpoint, is a compelling testimony to the perennial power of the poem.--Richard Martin, Anthony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor in Classics, Stanford University Underwood's translation of the Odyssey may enter into a marketplace filled with different versions of the Homeric epic, but it is the first prose edition I have read that evokes much of the poem's wonder. There's a deceptive lightness and simplicity to the translation that pulls the reader in. On the surface, the language seems straightforward and clear, but as the sentences pile up, you feel the cadence of legend. By not trying to be poetry, this translation is in some remarkable way more poetic. For modern readers who have little experience of reading verse, especially sustained in epic poems, Underwood's storytelling provides a welcome invitation to the reader to enter and get lost in Odysseus' world.--Joel Christensen, Brandeis University, professor, Department of Classical Studies

Author Information

Charles Underwood is an anthropologist and classical scholar.

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