The epic poem The Odyssey is traditionally attributed to the ancient Greek poet Homer. It tells of Odysseus’s ten-year struggle to return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, where his wife Penelope and son Telemachus await him.
Composed in Homeric Greek and written in dactylic hexameter, the poem is divided into 24 books. Its episodes include encounters with the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, and Scylla and Charybdis. The narrative also follows events in Ithaca, where suitors compete for Penelope’s hand and consume Odysseus’s wealth.
Homeric authorship is traditional rather than historically certain. Ancient Greek epics were transmitted through oral performance, and scholars still debate how the poems were composed and shaped. The “Homeric Question” asks whether one poet, multiple poets, or a long oral tradition best explains the surviving texts.
A frequent mix-up is calling Odysseus by his Roman name, Ulysses. They are the same hero; Homer is traditionally credited with the poem, while Virgil wrote the later Roman epic The Aeneid.