The Odyssey Tone

Serious, Humorous

Homer writes with a great sense of gravity that you would pretty much expect when reading about epic heroes and their long dangerous journeys. These matters, although they may seem outlandish to us, are taken very seriously: Odysseus’s suffering is palpable and never seems to end; Penelope’s longing for her husband is evident in her many tears; Telemachos journeys far and risks his life to find out news of his father; and even the gods gravely consider the plight of the mortals below.

At the same time, there is comic relief in some of the stories about the gods (like Demodokos singing about how Hephaistos caught wife, Aphrodite, with Ares); in the banter between servants; and in the tricks played by Odysseus and Athene. If there’s one single metaphor for this balancing act between tones, it comes when Homer compares Odysseus stringing his bow to a singer tuning his lyre (Book XXI, lines 404-411). The Odyssey is just like that: delicately – perhaps dangerously – poised between something harsh and warlike (the bow), yet also beautiful and enchanting (the lyre).