View The Odyssey Book 1 Background. Given the fact that the odyssey explores the transition from the chaotic battlefield to the orderly home setting, the nonlinear path of the story makes sense. Like homer's other epic, the iliad, the odyssey begins in medias res, or in the middle of things.
Rather than open the story with the culmination of the trojan war, homer begins midway through odysseus's wanderings. Oh goddess of inspiration, help me sing of wily odysseus, that master of schemes! so homer begins his epic, though the hero himself is still offstage. And appearing to his son telemachus, in human shape, adviseth him to complain of the wooers before the council of the people, and then go to pylos and sparta to inquire.
Penelope and her guest the odyssey:
Homer opens the odyssey with an invocation to the muse of epic poetry and asks for her guidance in telling the story of a man who has experienced many twists and turns of fate and has suffered many hardships. All search options view abbreviations. Book 1 poem by homer. The setting is an extremely important aspect of books one through eight of the odyssey.