The Odyssey - Homer [Online meeting]

This event is supported by The Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Local Partners Programme.

N.B.: this meeting will be held online via Google Meet. There is also an in-person session being held on Wednesday in the Prince of Wales pub near Covent Garden.

Halfway through our thematic 'Quest' year, we are going back farther than we've ever been to one of the oldest surviving stories, one of the foundations of Western, and now global literature.

Homer's Odyssey is the tale of Odysseus' homecoming to Ithaca after defeating the Trojans - his temptations, battles, failures and victories, all interwoven with his wife Penelope's resolve to fend off suitors, and his son Telemachus' search for news of his father. Expect discussions of duty, justice, temptation and different forms of power and leadership.

The meeting starts at 7pm with drink breaks at 8 and 9. The discussion will end around 10pm, but leave whenever you need to.

Here's the blurb from goodreads.com:

If the Iliad is the world's greatest war epic, then the Odyssey is literature's grandest evocation of everyman's journey though life. Odysseus' reliance on his wit and wiliness for survival in his encounters with divine and natural forces, during his ten-year voyage home to Ithaca after the Trojan War, is at once a timeless human story and an individual test of moral endurance.