Helpful Odyssey Links
Helpful Odyssey Links
19 Jun, 2026
Working through a reread of Homer's Odyssey after the Iliad; here are some resources that are helpful while reading. Companion to the Iliad post.
Translation
Emily Wilson is the usual first-read recommendation now — clarity and momentum over elevated diction, iambic pentameter, line-for-line with the Greek. Easiest entry point.
Robert Fagles is the same dramatic, cinematic reading I used for the Iliad. If you read his Iliad and liked it, just keep going.
Robert Fitzgerald was the literary standard for decades - more lyrical, slower, reflective.
Richmond Lattimore is the literal one that keeps the repeated epithets and oral formulas. Worth noting: people who love his Iliad often find his Odyssey flatter. I didn't use it.
Daniel Mendelsohn (2025) is the new one. Never read, but it exists.
Montana Classical College
The MCC Iliad guide was the main thing of my last post, but heads up: there is no equivalent per-book Odyssey lecture course. His Homer series went Iliad → Aeneid (the Aeneid lectures are genuinely good and constantly cross-reference the Odyssey). Odyssey-specific stuff is more scattered and collaborative with William Wheelwright. So:
- MCC archive - dig for the Homer/Wheelwright collaborations.
- William Wheelwright (linked from MCC's recommendations) writes per-book interpretive essays, worth finding his Homer stack.
Online
The most useful per-book and scholarly stuff online (some great):
Classical Inquiries - Nagy's line-by-line comments. Same trick as before: replace the 1 in the link with whatever book you're on (they call them "Rhapsodies," 1–24). This is the single best free companion.
Instant Classics - Mary Beard & Charlotte Higgins go through the poem book by book, following Wilson's translation. Beard's a real classicist, so it's not fluff. This is the closest thing to a per-book podcast.
Among the Ancients: The Odyssey - LRB Close Readings, Emily Wilson with Tom Jones. One long episode rather than per-book, but it's the translator herself on the nature of nostos and the violence Odysseus brings home. Free extract; full version paywalled.
Sententiae Antiquae - Joel Christensen's classics blog, Odyssey tag. Short, sharp posts on Greek, epithets, reception. Their essays section has longer pieces
CSMFHT Odyssey series - read-then-analyze podcast: each book, then the analysis in the following episode. Good cadence if you want to pace yourself.
Do You Even Lit? - multi-part walkthrough of Wilson's Odyssey. Conversational, three non-specialists reading closely. Transcripts at doyouevenlit.com.
Reads
Links to amazon, but amazon not the best place to get these.
Homeric Moments: Clues to Delight in Reading the Odyssey and Iliad - Eva Brann. Already linked it last time; it's actually more about the Odyssey than the Iliad.
The Homeric Odyssey - Denys Page. 1950s Bryn Mawr lectures: plot, historical background, origins. Old-school scholarly intro.
W.B. Stanford, The Ulysses Theme - the classic study of how the Odysseus figure mutates across later literature. Worth it once you've finished the poem.
Jonathan Shay, Odysseus in America - the nostos read as the soldier's homecoming and its costs. Companion to his Achilles in Vietnam.