The Odyssey was a fanfic of Homer (and, possibly, also of The Sack of Troy), and we cannot rule out that a woman composed it. Emily Watson has made the text relevant for a modern audience.
And dvorstone explains why I ain't watching Nolan's rendition of Watson's vision:
The Odyssey is not a universal story. It is not a detachable “hero’s journey” that can be stripped of its cultural origins and modernized for contemporary audiences. Its power lies in its particularity. The audience must do the work of closing the gap; the text does not come to us.
The values that animate it, xenia (reciprocal guest-friendship), oikos (the household and its obligations), mētis (cunning intelligence), kleos (glory), and timē (honor), are not interchangeable with modern liberal abstractions. They are embedded in a specific ancient Greek moral and social world.
All this, besides Claire Lehmann promoting it whom I don't trust one bit. Besides Razib Khan linking whatever this is I guess because that particular midwit had read the word "xenia" back in philosophy class once.
If we're going back to the Palatial Period, LHIII before LHIIIC, I suspect mētis won't show up much. The Linear B tablets float plenty of -klewēs names suggesting every other one of dvorstone's themes; the wanax presided over an honor-culture. Mētis however seems unhelpful to the Palace, more helpful to the peasantry (and to the slaves).
But mētis we do want to see in Odyssey. This might be a tale of a man of mētis redeemed back into the oikos. The postArchaic story. Pity Watson can't tell it and Nolan won't.
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