"The surge and thunder of the Odyssey."
The Odyssey relates the adventures of Ulysses on his return to Ithaca
after the Trojan war.
It consists of twenty-four books, the first four of which are sometimes
known as the Telemachia, because Telemachus is the principal figure.
The difference in style of the Iliad and Odyssey has caused some critics
to assert that the latter is not the work of Homer; this is accounted for,
however, by the difference of subject, and it is probable that the
Odyssey, though of a later date, is the work of the same hand, "the work
of Homer's old age,--an epic bathed in a mellow light of sunset."
If the Odyssey alone had come down to us, its authorship would have passed
unquestioned, for the poem is so compact, its plot so carefully planned
and so skilfully carried out, that there can be no doubt that it is the
work of one hand.
The Odyssey is as great a work of art as the Iliad, and is even more
popular; for the Odyssey is a domestic romance, and as such appeals to a
larger audience than a tale of war alone,--the romance of the wandering
Ulysses and the faithful Penelope. Interwoven with it are the ever-popular
fairy tales of Ulysses's wanderings and descriptions of home life. It is
marked by the same pagan enjoyment of life, the same freshness and charm
that lend enchantment to the Iliad.