"I want to focus on Odysseus’s nostos as taking place in a wholly imaginary world. For however deep the roots of Greek nostos in Indo-European myth, the Odyssey stands out in making Odysseus’s return an exclusively imaginary voyage." We are grateful to the Center for Odyssean Studies for permission to share Douglas Frame's paper "From Scheria to Ithaca." Read more
I visited the northwestern corner of Kefalonia on the way to joining the Classical Greece for Students and Alumni tour, led by Gregory Nagy. I first learned of this place when I came across the book Odysseus Unbound by Robert Bittlestone, an amateur classicist. Bittlestone took on the ancient question of where the Odyssean Ithaca might have been located. How exact were the geographical descriptions in Odyssey? The geography and… Read more
In this episode Gregory Nagy (Harvard), Leonard Muellner (Brandeis), and Douglas Frame (CHS) read, translate, and discuss Odyssey 1.44–62 in an accessible and informal way. Topics include an epithet of Athena, the mind of Odysseus and heart of Athena, associations between Kalypso and death, Atlas, the name Ithaka, Odysseus' relationship to Agamemnon, and much more! Read more
