We are all, at some point, Odysseus or Ulysses. Their lives mirror own our own and are a wellspring of stories about the journey of physical, inner, and imagined existence.

Some 2,800 years ago, Homer, with the Odyssey, opened one of the great paths of literature and one of the most enduring ways of narrating existence. From the life of one of the most human heroes of epic poetry, writers discovered a path of exploration that leads them inward and engages everyone with eternal questions: Where do I come from? Where am I? Who am I? What do I want? Where am I going? What are the consequences of my actions? What is life?

It is a story in which time and space underpin the narrative while language makes communication with others and with oneself posible. Words create, order, and preserve the memory of events and people. Homer doesn’t just tell a story: he establishes a way of understanding life through language.

Inspiration for Literature and the Arts

The Odyssey is a cornerstone of literary creation and thought, an inexhaustible source of inspiration for writers and other creators. Like Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, it constitutes one of the great foundational narratives of the Western imagination, of which we see only the reflections projected on the wall. Since then, authors have contemplated these shadows, interpreted them, transformed them, and turned them into new narratives that may contradict the foundational work. They enrich creation because the fire changes with the centuries, and with it, the shadows that each era casts on the ancient and fantastic journey of the Greek hero.

Its influence permeates the entire history of literature. Among the works that engage with the Odyssey, and that also generate new echoes, the following stand out:

The Aeneid, by Virgil.

The Divine Comedy, by Dante Alighieri.

The Tempest, by William Shakespeare.

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

Les Misérables, by Victor Hugo.

Moby Dick, by Herman Melville.

War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy.

Ulysses, by James Joyce.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Orlando, by Virginia Woolf.

As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner.

The Old Man and the Sea, by Ernest Hemingway.

For nearly three millennia, each era has found a different reflection in the Odyssey. Its legacy resonates in some of the greatest works of world literature and continues to inspire new reinterpretations, including in film.

The most recent proof of this capacity for renewal is Christopher Nolan’s 2026 film adaptation of The Odyssey. Rather than simply adapting Homer’s poem for the screen, the British director offers a fresh interpretation of the epic, demonstrating that, nearly three thousand years later, Odysseus’s journey continues to resonate with the present. His film revisits some of the poem’s major themes: the devastation of war, its consequences for individuals and societies, the responsibility for individual and collective decisions, identity, loyalty to oneself, atonement for guilt, and, above all, love and beauty as forces capable of propelling life forward or precipitating tragedy.

The Hero’s Two Journeys

It all began when Homer revisited the story of the Iliad, the epic poem about the Trojan War, and composed the Odyssey, comprising 24 books and 12,110 lines in dactylic hexameter. In it, he narrates the long return of Odysseus, king of Ithaca and one of the architects of the Greek victory, achieved thanks to the ruse of the wooden horse that allowed them to conquer Troy after ten years of war. But the hero’s true triumph will not be the fall of the city, but the arduous journey back home. Homer opens this journey with these unforgettable verses, which blend the present, the past, and the future of his protagonist:

Muse, tell me of the skillful man who, in his long wandering,

After having sacked the citadel of Troy,

Knew the cities and the genius of countless peoples.

Many hardships he endured along the sea routes, fighting

For himself and his life, and for the return home of his men,

But he could not save them with all his might,

For in their own folly they met their death. Fools!

They devoured the cattle of the Sun Hyperion, and, angered,

The goddess deprived them of the light of their return. Beginning

Tell it wherever you will, O goddess born of Zeus!

From these opening verses, it is clear that the Odyssey does not merely narrate the return of a king to his island, but the journey of a man transformed by his decisions, by the awakening of his conscience, by the passage of time, by loss, and by knowledge.

The Odyssey is not just a succession of adventures and obstacles faced by the hero in his attempt to return to Ithaca after the Trojan War. On that journey, he confronts Polyphemus and blinds him. The offense provokes the wrath of Poseidon, father of the Cyclops, who condemns Odysseus to a long and arduous journey home. Thus, the voyage is prolonged for another ten years, the same length as the war itself. But Odysseus continues to have Athena as his ally.

His story can be divided into two journeys. The first is external: leaving home to fight at Troy, where his intelligence culminates in the ruse of the Trojan Horse. The second begins when Odysseus embarks on the return to Ithaca. This return, fraught with obstacles, ultimately becomes a physical, moral, and inner journey in which each stop tests his identity and his desire to become who he once was.

The Precedent of the Odyssey

But the Odyssey also has a precedent: the Epic of Gilgamesh, the first book of humankind, dating back some forty centuries. That is, about fifteen centuries before the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are considered a duology.

In that primordial text, the conflict in Uruk, whose king is Gilgamesh, begins—not war per se, but rather forms of hostility. Then comes the death of Enkidu, whose loss compels King Gilgamesh to embark on a journey in the hope of conquering death. On this journey, what he ultimately finds is a different answer: the meaning of life.

The parallels between these works, and especially between the Iliad and the Odyssey, are evident. Some of their themes are:

Beauty, a generator of well-being, chaos, and tragedy.

Love, the driving force and catalyst for decisions.

Time, the quest to conquer it.

Hostility and war, the constant threat.

Curiosity, the driving force of human evolution.

Nostalgia, a companion that both saddens and inspires.

Cunning and strength, the eternal pairing.

All of this leads to the great lesson of the Odyssey: recognizing and accepting the consequences of our actions. Because no one returns from a journey the same person who set out.

• With translation assistance from Robert Lienhard.

All articles from our English edition are available HERE

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