Reading Order
The OdysseyHomeric Epics Reading Order
Homer's Odyssey (c. 8th century BCE) is one of the oldest and most influential works of Western literature — an epic poem following the ten-year journey of Odysseus (Ulysses in Latin) to return home to Ithaca after the fall of Troy, facing monsters, divine interventions, and temptations while his wife Penelope and son Telemachus wait for his return. The Odyssey defined the adventure narrative in Western literature and has influenced countless works over three millennia.
Where to start
The Odyssey
Complete The Odyssey Book List
- 1Buy
The Odyssey
Homer (tr. Emily Wilson)·2017·Emily Wilson's 2017 translation — the first English translation of the Odyssey by a woman — is widely regarded as the most accurate and readable modern translation, preserving the poem's oral quality and challenging some traditional interpretive choices in the prose. - 2Buy
The Iliad
Homer (tr. Caroline Alexander)·2015·Homer's other epic — the story of the Trojan War itself, centered on the wrath of Achilles. The events of the Odyssey follow from the Iliad; reading both gives the complete picture of the Greek heroic tradition Homer synthesized. - 3Buy
The Aeneid
Virgil (tr. David Ferry)·2017·Virgil's Latin epic about the Trojan hero Aeneas's journey from Troy to Italy, where he founds the civilization that will become Rome — self-consciously modeled on both Homeric epics and often read as a dialogue with the Odyssey about empire, fate, and heroism. - 4Buy
Circe
Madeline Miller·2018·Miller's feminist retelling of the witch who transformed Odysseus's men into pigs — narrated from Circe's perspective across centuries of myth. One of the finest contemporary retellings of classical material. - 5Buy
The Song of Achilles
Madeline Miller·2011·Miller's novel about Achilles and Patroclus — a love story and a retelling of the Iliad from Patroclus's perspective. Essential reading for anyone interested in the Trojan War tradition. - 6Buy
Ulysses
James Joyce·1922·Joyce's modernist novel set in a single day in Dublin in 1904, mapping the experiences of Leopold Bloom, Stephen Dedalus, and Molly Bloom onto the structure of the Odyssey — one episode per chapter, each corresponding to an episode from Homer. The most ambitious literary riff on the Odyssey in English. - 7Buy
The Penelopiad
Margaret Atwood·2005·Atwood's feminist retelling of the Odyssey from Penelope's perspective — the waiting, the suitors, the weaving, the revenge — and the twelve hanged maids who haunt the margins of the original as a chorus in Atwood's version.
The Odyssey — Frequently Asked Questions
Which translation of the Odyssey should I read?
For contemporary readers, Emily Wilson's 2017 translation (W.W. Norton) is widely recommended as the most readable, accurate, and stylistically faithful to the oral-formulaic character of the original. Robert Fagles's 1996 translation (Penguin) is also excellent and has been the standard recommended translation for decades — more expansive and dramatic than Wilson's. Richmond Lattimore's 1965 translation is more literal and preserves the hexameter feel more closely; valuable for study but harder to read fluently. Alexander Pope's 18th-century verse translation is a masterpiece in its own right but should be understood as an 18th-century poem rather than a direct translation of Homer. For children or first-time readers, a prose retelling (Rosemary Sutcliff's Black Ships Before Troy) can provide an accessible entry point.
What is the relationship between the Odyssey and the Iliad?
The Odyssey is the sequel to the Iliad in terms of chronology — the Iliad covers approximately 52 days near the end of the ten-year Trojan War, and the Odyssey covers Odysseus's ten-year voyage home following Troy's fall. Both are attributed to Homer, though scholars debate whether they are the work of the same person, different people, or a tradition of oral composition. The Odyssey is formally very different from the Iliad: where the Iliad is about war, communal fate, and the cost of heroic glory (kleos), the Odyssey is about the individual journey, cunning (metis) over strength, and the desire for home (nostos). The Odyssey refers back to the Iliad constantly — Odysseus's identity is defined by his role in the Trojan War — and reading both gives a much richer picture of the Greek heroic tradition.
Who are the main characters in the Odyssey?
Odysseus (or Ulysses in Latin) is the protagonist — King of Ithaca, known for cunning intelligence rather than brute strength, the man who devised the Trojan Horse. His wife Penelope has waited twenty years for his return, fending off suitors who want to marry her (and take Ithaca's throne) by weaving a shroud and promising to choose a husband when it is complete, unraveling it each night. Their son Telemachus grows up through the Odyssey's first four books searching for news of his father. The divine characters include Athena (Odysseus's patron goddess) and Poseidon (his enemy, enraged because Odysseus blinded Poseidon's son the Cyclops Polyphemus). Major episodes feature the Cyclops, the sorceress Circe, the goddess Calypso, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the shades of the dead in the underworld.
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