The Odyssey is among the oldest-known written works, yet somehow profoundly contemporary.
Its themes are inescapably human: the desire to strike out for new adventures, the aspiration to be more than human, the temptation to wallow in beastlike torpor, the impulse to exact vengeance, and the possibility that mercy might bring a violent cycle to an end. As political philosopher Patrick Deneen will explain, the Odyssey is also the most American of ancient texts. Like Odysseus, Americans are a people simultaneously animated by commitments to being at home and leaving home. With the United States semiquincentennial and the release of the blockbuster film The Odyssey, Deneen reveals how Americans' Western inheritance contains a paradox that remains at the core of our divided souls.
