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The Odyssey is one of two major Ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still read by contemporary audiences.
As with the Iliad, the poem is divided into 24 books. It follows the Greek hero Odysseus, king of Ithaca, and his journey home after winning the Trojan War. It takes Odysseus ten years to reach Ithaca after the ten-year Trojan War. In his absence, Odysseus is assumed dead, and his wife Penelope and son Telemachus must contend with a group of unruly suitors who compete for Penelope's hand in marriage.
The first English translation of the Odyssey was in the 16th century, but the poem was known earlier than 566 BCE, when Peisistratos created a festival which featured performances of the Homeric poems. In antiquity, Homer's authorship of the Odyssey and Iliad was not questioned, but contemporary scholarship predominately assumes that the poems were composed independently, and the stories themselves formed as part of a long oral tradition. Given widespread illiteracy, the poem was performed by an aoidos or rhapsode, and more likely to be heard than read.
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