In his book entitled The Hero with a Thousand Faces, literary critic Joseph Campbell outlines twelve distinct phases of plot that a poem must contain in order for it to be considered epic. Among the poems classified as epic, there are many well known titles such as Homer’s The Iliad, Virgil’s The Aeneid, Beowulf, Gilgamesh, Dante Alighieri’s Divina Commedia, Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales, John Milton’s Paradise Lost, and The Book of One Thousand and One Arabian Nights. Homer’s The Odyssey, one of the most widely read texts in modern academia, fits the definition of an epic poem as well as corresponds exactly to Joseph Campbell’s designation of epic poetry. The Odyssey, therefore, is a prime example of an epic poem.
Traditionally, both The Iliad and The Odyssey have been attributed to an ancient Greek author named Homer. The ancient Greeks generally described Homer as a blind poet who lived on the island of Chios in the eastern Aegean Sea” (Layman). Since we have no solid information on the existence of any writer by the name of Homer and because we know that the Greeks used oral tradition to communicate their stories and histories, it has more recently been suggested that Homer is not explicitly the author of these two poems. It is more commonly accepted that both The Iliad and The Odyssey were sung by bards for centuries before they were ever written down, though they were probably written down by a Greek man named Homer, who was himself, a bard. Consequently, the “Homer” that most people are familiar with is actually “an anthropomorphization of what we name by the abstraction ‘tradition'” (Foley).
It is important to the modern reader that The Odyssey started out in an oral tradition. Instead of being written down, it had been passed down for generations and generations while small, minute changes may have been made each time the poem was recited. This gives us insight into the values and principles that were important to the ancient Greek society. Bruccoli Clark Layman, a literary critic, comments on the significance of this poem being verbal as opposed to written when he says, “In a preliterate culture the past exists only in oral poetic performance, people and their acts can live on beyond the moment only in the memory of the poetic tradition. So from one perspective it is possible to say that events happen only as song, and the people behind the events are, in turn, only part of the fabric of song. Then, too, people living during something so grand and so awful as the ten-year siege and final destruction of Troy can only make sense of these events by assuming that they are finally transcendent not simply as history but as saga, as traditional narrative, as the song that singers sing. People gain a place in history, in human consciousness, only by being memorialized in epic song” (Layman).
Joseph Campbell, a literary critic with expertise in epic poetry, has written a twelve step outline of everything an epic poem should contain. In addition to these twelve characteristics, an epic poem traditionally has a few other elements. First, it must contain a hero; in The Odyssey, the hero is the poem’s namesake, Odysseus. Secondly, the epic begins in what is called en media res, which is Latin for “in the middle of things”. This means that in The Odyssey, the narration begins in the middle of the story; the beginnings of the story are chronicled through a flashback in the middle of the poem. Also, the very first lines in an epic are usually an invocation to a higher being so that the author may accurately tell the story. The Odyssey begins, “Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story…” (Homer 1). Lastly, an epic is conventionally written in an elevated style. The language that The Odyssey is written in, though it was understood by all who heard it, would not have been the vernacular of ancient Greece, but rather a higher literary language.
Joseph Campbell writes that the hero starts off in his home. In the case of The Odyssey, Odysseus’ home is the rocky, mountainous island of Ithaca. Ithaca, to this day, is an actual island located in the Ionian Sea. In the poem, Odysseus is the benevolent and beloved king of Ithaca. At this point, we are also introduced to Odysseus’ family. His wife Penelope, the adored queen of Ithaca, has just given birth to their first son, Telemachus.
The next two steps in Campbell’s framework are the “call to adventure” and the “reluctant hero”. He says that “something unexpected in most cases beckons, either from within or without heralding that a journey must be undertaken” (Campbell), but the hero often disagrees with this call and initially refuses to make any sort of journey. In The Odyssey, we are told that Odysseus left Ithaca and his family when he was called to help fight in the Trojan War. Because his son had just been born and he still had the island to rule, he was reluctant in the beginning, but agreed to go to war once he had entrusted his kingdom to Penelope.
Campbell lays out that the hero must next have a source of “supernatural aid”. This, for Odysseus, is the Greek goddess of wisdom and intelligence. Throughout the poem, Athena constantly intervenes in both Odysseus’ and Telemachus’ lives, always for Odysseus’ benefit. She shifts her shape so that she may take human forms to talk to Odysseus and his family, she pacifies Penelope’s crying for her absent husband, she influences other minor characters to partake in actions that ultimately prove beneficial for Odysseus, and implores Zeus, the ruler of the gods, to have mercy on Odysseus.
Campbell then writes that “now the hero is ready to cross into the underworld, the realm of which they are unfamiliar but that holds something they must obtain or learn” (Campbell). This is the part of The Odyssey where Odysseus has won the Trojan War for the Greeks and is now ready to set out for Ithaca. After ten years of fighting the war, he expects the journey to be a quick one, but it quickly becomes apparent that he is in an unfamiliar territory, one where he is to be taught many lessons.
Next, “the hero finds themselves in some sort of trials where they must use their abilities (and develop their unrealized abilities) in order to progress” (Campbell). In Odysseus’ wanderings, he comes to an island inhabited by Cyclops. When he blinds one of these Cyclops, Polyphemus, in order to escape his cave, Polyphemus calls upon his father to punish Odysseus. Polyphemus’ father is Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, who then makes it his personal mission to avenge his son’s lost sense by impeding every attempt of Odysseus to get home to his kingdom and his family. Although there are many trials which Odysseus must triumph over, it is according to Poseidon’s will that he is faced with each one.
Throughout the trials that an epic hero encounters, they are met by many other characters, some who become allies and others who become enemies. For example, many of the kings that Odysseus meets along his journey take him into their homes and host banquets in his honor. They then proceed to give him lavish gifts before setting him back out on his way home. On the other hand, a good number of the mythical creatures that he comes across end up hindering Odysseus even more. Many of them, such as Circe the sorceress, detain him for extended amounts of time, making his journey last that much longer.
Next on Campbell’s outline is the presentation of a great ordeal that the hero must overcome. In The Odyssey, many of the single men of Ithaca have become convinced that Odysseus must be dead and they take up pursuing Penelope for her hand in marriage so that they might rule over Ithaca. These suitors overrun Odysseus’ palace, eating his crops and livestock, harassing Penelope, threatening Telemachus, being rude to the maids and servants, and being overall improper guests. Because a positive guest-host relationship was so important in Greek society, this becomes a major obstacle to Odysseus returning to his previous life on Ithaca and reuniting himself with his wife and son.
In order to be classified as an epic poem, the hero must also become aware of or receive a gift which helps him through his trials and ordeals. Odysseus’ most obvious gift is his wisdom, intelligence, and cleverness. Throughout the poem, he is referred to as “clever Odysseus”, “resourceful Odysseus”, etc., which shows the reader that his intellect is definitely one of his most defining features. Countless times through the narrative, Odysseus uses his cunning to outsmart enemies, form advantageous alliances with friends, and take small but necessary losses to prevent loosing his entire crew, his ship, or his life.
The “flight” or “journey back” portion of Campbell’s description of epic comprises the vast majority of Odysseus’ story. Throughout his journey, he is prepared more and more for his return home, in which, according to Joseph Campbell, he will face a “final showdown of the second threshold crossing”. It is through the journey back that we are revealed Odysseus’ true character and we witness the events that shape his personality. Because we are aware that the reason Odysseus wants to get back to Ithaca is to be reunited with his family, we are able to see that the family system was the fundamental social unit in ancient Greek culture and society valued the family above all else.
As the end of the narrative comes close, Campbell’s next stage becomes prevalent. In this stage, the hero becomes the “master of both worlds” and is reborn into their homeland. “The hero’s lessons are tested for a last time and they are allowed to return to the world in which they came with their new knowledge [or] elixir. They have gone into the darkness and come back out triumphant” (Campbell). In The Odyssey, this part is fulfilled when Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca. He has been gone for a total of twenty years, ten at war and another ten wandering the sea, but cleverly waits to see Penelope because of the cautiousness and wisdom he has learned along his travels. He then uses this intelligence along with the strength that he has built from years on a ship to fight off and kill all of Penelope’s suitors with the help of Telemachus.
The last phase of Campbell’s epic definition is for the hero to return home victorious and complete the goals of his journey. This, in The Odyssey, is when Odysseus reveals his hidden identity to Penelope. Penelope, who was patient enough to have remained faithful to Odysseus for twenty years, is overjoyed to see her husband at last. Odysseus and his family, now officially brought back together into a traditional family unit, are free to reinstate their rule over all of Ithaca.
Because Homer’s The Odyssey extensively implements each and every aspect of an epic poem, as defined by Joseph Campbell, it is clear that it can reasonably be characterized as an epic. Because epics are prevalent in many western cultures to this day, we can be certain that The Odyssey, one of the oldest and most influential epic poems surviving in its entirety, has had a major impact on western literature and remains to be prominent and significant in modern day learning.
Works Cited
Campbell, Joseph. “MonoMyth Chart of Joseph Campbell’s Hero’s Journey”. Monomyth.org. http://monomyth.org/index.php?module=article&view;=7&MMN;_position=12:2
Foley, John Miles. “Individual Poet and Epic Tradition: Homer as Legendary Singer”. Arethusa 31.2. Johns Hopkins University Press. 1998. pages 149-178
Homer. Trans. Fitzgerald, Robert. The Odyssey. Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, New York: 1998
Layman, Bruccoli Clark. Dictionary of Literary Biography, Volume 176: Ancient Greek Authors. Edited by Ward W. Briggs, University of South Carolina. The Gale Group, 1997. pp. 220-233.
