Odysseus is shown through much of Greek mythological writing as intelligent and crafty. It is clear in the Odyssey who the “good” and “bad” characters are, and therefore with whom the readers (or more accurately the listeners, as it was intended to be recited orally) should emphathize. This epic is distinct from the Iliad in that it is a more romantic than heroic/tragic poem. Homer’s Odyssey is an epic poem consisting of 24 books telling the story of the Trojan War hero Odysseus' ten-year journey trying to get home to his wife Penelope and son Telemachus in Ithaca, where Odysseus is king. The two most plausible locations for the birth of Homer are Smyrna and Chios, but ancient Greeks viewed the poet as a blind minstrel wandering while he composed the poems, which were sung or chanted, accompanied by a lyre. This is supported by contextual clues in the poems themselves. The mixed dialect of Ionian Greek in which each poem was originally written indicates that both poems were written in the east Aegean. Homer relied on oral history to compose his poems this provides some of the basis for the 'separatist' view that the two epic poems were not written by the same person, but possibly by a combination of poets.

The Trojan War is estimated to have occurred at the end of the Mycenaean Age in Greece, around 1200 BCE, meaning that Homer was looking back four centuries to a heroic world much greater in his esteem, than the contemporary world. Herodotus claimed Homer lived around 850 BCE, while modern scholars usually date his poems to the second half of the eighth century BCE.

Little is known about the life of Homer, the poet responsible for the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Odysseia by Homer