The Expansiveness of The Odyssey.

The Odyssey is an expansive work of art that greatly influenced many literary works that appeared after it. We can observe this through many works and there are numberless examples.
Thus, for the later epic poets of Western literature, Homer was the greatest influence.

By the fifth century B.C in Greece, The Iliad and The Odyssey together made up the Greeks? Old and New Testaments. Homer became the absolute dominant literary, religious and social force. He continued to be the mine from which the other writers took their stories and plots. His greatest influences on the Greeks was making them feel that being Greek was more important than being Athenian or Theban. He made them feel how important they are and built their self-confidence.

His works translated into many languages. For instance, The Odyssey was translated into Latin, which began to have effect on the Greeks. Later, Gottfried August B?rger, a German poet, translated some of the works of ancient Greek writer Homer. Manuel Chrysoloras, a Greek scholar of the early Renaissance, made notable translations of Homer into Italian language. Also, Lucius Livius Andronicus, a Roman dramatist and epic poet, who translated Homer's Odyssey into Latin verse and gave Romans their first chance to read Greek classics in their own language.

Homer indeed has many fans and Virgil was his greatest admirer. He derived his Aeneid's style and treatment from the ancient Greek epics that attributed to Homer, the Iliad and the Odyssey.
There is also Dante Alighieri who in his work The Divine Comedy is influenced by Homer and by his motif of a mythical hero?s quest, which we can find it in The Odyssey. For example, Odysseus leaved his homeland and his family and he underwent many dangerous obstacles in order to gain a knowledge that helps him later to resolve his problems. But in Dante?s epic masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, Dante, the character is a lost questing pilgrim, he is eager to find the way to salvation and to Heaven. This work is an allegorical narrative of the poet's imaginary journey through hell, purgatory, and heaven. It is divided into three sections: the Inferno (Hell), the Purgatorio (Purgatory), and the Paradiso (Paradise). In each of these three realms the poet meets with mythological, historical, and contemporary personages. Each character is symbolic of a particular fault or virtue, either religious or political.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, a Spanish writer, is influenced also by Homer. His masterpiece Don Quixote (Part I, 1605; Part II, 1615) describes the adventures of an idealistic Spanish nobleman who, as a result of reading many tales of chivalry, comes to believe that he is a knight who must combat the world's injustices. Don Quixote travels in search of adventure. This novel presents a rich picture of Spanish life and contains many philosophical insights. Don Quixote's quest is seen as an allegory of the eternal human quest for goodness and truth in the face of unconquerable obstacles. Because of his eloquent style and remarkable insight, Cervantes has achieved acclamation comparable to that given to such literary greats as Greek poet Homer. There are many influenced writers by Homer?s style such as Samuel Butler, an English novelist; he wrote several works on the Homeric legends including The Authoress of the Odyssey (1897).
In fact, Odysseus? journeys and travels inspired many writers such as Daniel Defoe in his work Robinson Crusoe (1719), which is about a fictional tale of a shipwrecked sailor, and Jonathan Swift in his masterpiece Gulliver's Travels (1726).

The twentieth century has become so familiar with Homer. There are many works based on Homer?s The Odyssey such as James Joyce?s Ulysses (1922) and Nikos Kazantzakis? Odyssey (1938). Kazantzakis? Odyssey begins where Homer?s work leaves off. Through many episodes in his work are from his own imagination, but the inspiration and the travels as well as the character of Odysseus are Homeric.

Thus, Homer has a great influence on many writers, poets, authors and translators. For instance, the poems of Louise Gl?ck, an American poet, in Meadowlands (1996) are sustained allusion to The Odyssey. But we discover that as for novels, such as Don Quixote or Ulysses, the more Homeric they are, the more they lean toward parody and mock epic. We observe that Homer?s The Odyssey has reached many countries, such as Germany, Ireland, USA, Italy and Spain?. etc. i.e. his work has overspread over the world. So, the influence of Homer?s Odyssey on world literature cannot be measured.