The epic poem traditionally credited to Homer is “The Odyssey,” the ancient Greek story of Odysseus’s long journey home. It is paired with the Iliad as one of the two foundational Homeric epics.
The poem follows Odysseus, king of Ithaca, after the Trojan War. Although the war lasts ten years, his voyage home takes another decade, bringing encounters with the Cyclops Polyphemus, the enchantress Circe, the Sirens, Scylla and Charybdis, and the nymph Calypso. Meanwhile, his wife Penelope and son Telemachus face suitors who assume he is dead.
The Odyssey is divided into 24 books and contains about 12,109 lines in the standard Greek text. It was composed in Homeric Greek using dactylic hexameter, probably around the 8th or 7th century BCE. Its themes include homecoming, loyalty, identity, hospitality, and the consequences of arrogance.
Homer’s authorship is traditional rather than historically certain. Modern scholars emphasize that the poem developed through a long oral tradition and may have been shaped by multiple performers or poets. That scholarly debate does not change the standard quiz answer: Homer is the conventional attribution. Ovid, Dante, and Virgil were later writers from different literary traditions.