Myths of the Odyssey in Art and Literature

A fascinating look at how the poetry of Homer in the Odyssey was rendered and interpreted down the ages by the artists, painters, sculptors, jewellers, poets and writers who followed soon thereafter in Ancient Greece and Rome.

“By two voices the tales of Homer have been told us: to one of these we too often neglect to listen. Because the myths of Homer himself are told in words that are matchless, is it well that the story which art has left us should remain unread? The vase-painter and the gem-engraver are indeed humbler artists than the great epic poet; sometimes they are mere craftsmen, and their work little beyond the rudest symbolic word-painting; but they are Greeks, and they may help us to understand somewhat better the spirit of their mighty kinsman. We who are so far removed, by time, by place, by every condition of modern life, must refuse no aid whereby we may seek to draw the nearer: our eyes must learn to see as well as our ears to hearken.

We read enough of the writings of scholiast and grammarian, who have striven in all ages to elucidate the text of Homer. Thereby we acquire, it is true, much verbal intelligence of our poet, but perhaps attain to but little additional sympathy. There is another commentary which by all but professed archaeologists remains for the most part unknown, the commentary of Art, of Mythography.”-Preface