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‘More postmodern than ancient’: why the Odyssey is everywhere, from Oz to Westeros
Christopher Nolan's forthcoming film adaptation of Homer's Odyssey is being tipped to break box-office records, and this Guardian feature explores why the director of Inception and Oppenheimer was so determined to bring the ancient Greek epic to the screen. It also asks a broader question: why a poem thought to date from around the 600s or 500s BC continues to exert such a powerful hold on modern popular culture, echoing through works from The Wizard of Oz to Game of Thrones.
The piece explains that although the Greeks attributed the poem to Homer, a supposedly blind bard from Chios, scholars now doubt it was the work of a single author. It notes that the American classicist Milman Parry, studying oral singers in the Balkans in the 1930s, showed the Odyssey and the Iliad grew out of a long oral tradition of bards performing through memory and improvisation. The writer argues the poem is strikingly self-aware — at times feeling "more postmodern than ancient" — containing scenes of bards telling stories that move their listeners to tears, and suggests such live performances may once have been even more overwhelming than Nolan's cinema.
In short
- Nolan's Odyssey film is expected to break box-office records.
- The 2,600-year-old epic still grips modern pop culture.
- Scholars trace the poem to an oral, bardic tradition.
Explained simply
Homer's Odyssey is an ancient Greek epic poem traditionally dated to around the 6th or 5th century BC. It tells the story of Odysseus's long journey home after the Trojan War and is considered one of the most important works in Western literature. The poem has inspired countless retellings and adaptations across different media and cultures for thousands of years.
For much of history, a single author named Homer was credited with writing the Odyssey. Modern scholars have challenged this assumption, particularly after American classicist Milman Parry showed in the 1930s that the poem grew from an oral tradition. Rather than a fixed written text, the Odyssey was created by bards who performed the story from memory, improvising details as they performed for audiences.
The poem's influence continues to appear in contemporary culture, from The Wizard of Oz to Game of Thrones. The Odyssey includes self-aware narrative elements, such as scenes of bards telling stories that deeply affect their listeners. This sophisticated storytelling approach helps explain why a 2,500-year-old text continues to shape modern creative works.