Prologue
Homer was the son of Telemachus, who was the son of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, and Polycaste, daughter of Nestor, King of Pylos (Anthologia Palatina 14.102). Homer lived a generation after the Trojan War, that is, towards the end of the 13th century.th the beginning of the 12th centuryth century before our era (BC). In other words, this great poet and teacher of the Greeks sang of his grandfather, Odysseus, approximately 3,326 years ago today, 2026.
The Epics of Homer
The Epics of Homer (Iliad and Odyssey) are language, poetry, myth, history, traditions, science, technology, geography, astronomy, cosmology and love for Greece, Hellenism. The Greeks for centuries read, studied, sang, danced and feasted on the Epics of Homer. They had no doubts about Homer. They worshipped him as a god. And Aristotle in the fourth century BC, published the Epics of Homer for his student Alexander the Great, who during the conquest of the Persian Empire, imitated the hero Achilles of the Trojan War. Aristotle, the great philosopher and inventor of science, had Homer as a source of knowledge, science, intelligence, prudence, and wisdom.
Homer's Epics remain the pillars of Greek and, in some ways, Western civilization. With the political fall of ancient Greece to Rome in 2being century BC, Greece without freedom became half Greece. And its Christianization in the 4th centurybeing century and after it was an earthquake and fire for the country.
Ancient Greek civilization, books, libraries, schools, universities, science, technology, architecture, the Olympic and other Panhellenic games, the theater of Dionysus, and democracy, sank into nonexistence and often obscurity. However, several philosophical, scientific, and literary manuscripts were saved from the fires of the Arab Renaissance in the 8th century.being century and the Europeans in the 15being century.
Beginning of Homer's Odyssey by John Russos in the late 15th centuryth century for the Florentine Tornabuoni family. British Museum. Public Domain.
History in Homer's Odyssey
With a few exceptions, European and American academics consider Homer and his Epics mythological, that is, creations of the imagination.
This incomprehensible superstition extend to theater and cinema. This is the main reason why Hollywood's Christopher Nolan presents Homer's Odyssey as a work of myth and fantasy. This erroneous metaphysics led him to create, in 2026, the film version of Homer's Odyssey that has little to do with the real Homer's Odyssey.
Nolan sees The Odyssey, Odysseus’s adventure to return to Ithaca, as a Hollywood science fiction novel — with constant wars, violence, unbearable noise, feelings of devastating earthquakes, and battles with mighty monsters. Not that Homer didn’t describe monsters and dramatic conflicts between Odysseus and the barbarians he encountered on his perilous journey to Ithaca. And of course he did. The problem with Nolan is his failure to understand and comprehend Homer. He thought it logical to follow the monotheists’ fear and envy of the Greek gods. In doing so, he alienated the Bronze Age Greeks from the gods. That is, Nolan, with the exception of the goddess Athena, eliminated Homer’s gods. This immediately eliminated Homer from his work. He did not understand that Homer had a historical and encyclopedic knowledge of Greek culture. Thus, Nolan, and perhaps without malice, lost the beauty and wisdom of Homer.
The events he photographed have roots in Homer, but they do not represent the Odyssey. In addition, Nolan changed the events by removing or adding text or action. For example, Nolan did not show the god Hermes giving Odysseus the medicine Molly to nullify Circe's magic that had transformed Odysseus' Greek sailor companions into pigs. Why? Fear of the gods? Equally and worse, Nolan removed two important events from the Odyssey. The first had to do with the god of the winds Aeolus. Aeolus gave Odysseus a bag with all the winds, with the exception of one wind that would lead Odysseus' ships to Ithaca. Aeolus, however, warned Odysseus not to open the bag. Odysseus ordered the sailors not to touch the bag. But when Odysseus fell asleep, the sailors, suspecting that the bag contained gold, opened it. Homer tells us that Odysseus' ships were very close to Ithaca. But the winds pushed the ships to the island of Aeolus. Odysseus, of course, became furious. Aeolus became angry and refused to help Odysseus.
As I said, Nolan missed the opportunity to present this event with the collaboration of Odysseus, Aeolus, the winds, and the human weakness and suspicion that led to the sailors' dishonorable act with disastrous results.
The second event that Nolan removed from the Odyssey was the arrival of the nearly drowned Odysseus on the island of Phaeacia/Corfu. Homer sings of Princess Nausicaa, King Alcinous, and Queen Arete who warmly welcomed Odysseus as their kinsman. Odysseus told them that he was the son of Laertes and that his glory had reached heaven and the whole world. But, above all, Odysseus wanted to return to Ithaca. Alcinous put him on a ship of superior technology that could read the passenger’s thoughts and, without a pilot, transported the passenger quickly and safely to the port of his city (Homer, Odyssey 555-565). It is very likely that the existence of such superior technology in Bronze Age Greece was Nolan's excuse for avoiding this great event of scientific excellence in Greece more than 3,000 years before 2026.
Epilogue
Nolan's film Odyssey is a first step for America to come into contact with the ancient Greeks. The work has shortcomings that can be corrected, so that the beauty, wisdom, sobriety, and prudence of Homer can benefit America and the world.
Photo By May be found at the following website: Universal Pictures Publicity, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=80308811, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
