In what poetic meter is The Odyssey composed?

The Odyssey is composed in dactylic hexameter, the traditional meter of ancient Greek epic poetry.

A hexameter line has six metrical feet. In dactylic hexameter, the basic dactyl consists of one long syllable followed by two short syllables, although Homer regularly substitutes spondees—two long syllables—especially in the earlier feet of a line.

This flexible rhythm suited oral performance. A singer could use familiar phrases, repeated epithets, and formulaic patterns while maintaining the meter during extended recitation. The same verse form is used throughout the Iliad, making the two poems closely related in style as well as subject.

Readers sometimes confuse the poem’s original meter with the meter of later translations. Alexander Pope’s famous English translation, for example, uses rhyming heroic couplets in iambic pentameter. That describes Pope’s translation, not the Homeric Greek original.