The Unity of the Odyssey

Dimock proceeds Book by Homeric Book. At times he retells the epic tale. At others he dwells on this or that thematic highlight or difficulty. He draws on etymology, especially with reference to the names of the characters. It is the 'pain' which he hears out of the many-minded and much test Odysseus which gives the twenty-four Books their axis. But each angle of comprehension, each phiological and critical move is meant to demonstrate the unwavering coherence of the epic, the perfect appositeness of every episode, detail, seeming digression to the underlying design of the homecoming and of the restoration to Ithaea of justice, of a justice precisely tempered, ripened by pain. - George Steiner. (London). Time Literary Supplement.