Retelling the Odyssey

The authors of a new edition of a book of Homer’s Odyssey hope that Christopher Nolan’s film (out 17^th July) will feature enough female characters and do justice to the epic’s crucial underworld scene.

Homer’s Odyssey isn’t just the greatest tale ever told, it’s arguably the most influential text ever written about the afterlife, and an unrivalled showcase of strong female characters – dead and alive.

“The casting for the film looks great. The trailer is tantalising. If Christopher Nolan delivers enough wonderful female characters and a powerful underworld scene this could be superb,” says Cambridge Professor Richard Hunter.

Women of the Odyssey

The film’s official full-length trailer only features three women, and of the 48 cast members currently listed on IMDb, only 7 are female. They include some of Hollywood’s most famous actresses – Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Anne Hathaway, Lupita Nyong’o, and Samantha Morton – playing some of the epic’s key characters: Athena, Calypso, Penelope, Helen of Troy, and Circe.

Professor Rebecca Laemmle is glad that the film will feature a goddess, Athena, and is delighted that Zendaya is playing her. “Many recent films on the Homeric epics have shied away from showing us Homer’s gods and the more fantastical aspects of his epic,” Laemmle says. “Hopefully this film will be different.”

Both Cambridge classics professors hope that there are more female characters, divine and human, to be revealed.

“Will Odysseus’ mother Anticleia feature? Odysseus, surely, has to meet his mother in the underworld,” Professor Laemmle says. “And what about Queen Arete and the sirens? And will we see Nausicaa, the Phaeacian princess who rescues the shipwrecked Odysseus?”

Professor Hunter says: “The Odyssey teems with women above and below ground. And they aren’t ornamental. They are central to the narrative. I am glad that Helen will feature. Her account of what happened at Troy is crucial to the Odyssey’s meditation on storytelling. I’m also eager to see what Nolan does with the sirens.”

Hunter is a General Editor of the renowned ‘Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics’ series published by Cambridge University Press and is Regius Professor of Greek Emeritus at Cambridge. Laemmle is Professor of Greek Literature. Their new edition of Book 11 of the Odyssey (published August 2026) serves up this part of the epic in ancient Greek with expert interpretative commentary and plenty of linguistic help for readers of all levels.

Tackling the underworld

In Book 11 of the epic, Odysseus visits the underworld and converses with the dead. This is the earliest surviving sustained Greek account of a trip to the underworld, and from the moment it was first heard, nearly 3,000 years ago, it’s been hugely influential, echoing through literature, religion and philosophy into the present day.

As they await Nolan’s blockbuster, the professors are hoping that Matt Damon (playing Odysseus) gets a ghostly experience worthy of the epic.

Hunter says: “The trip to the underworld is such an important part of what defines this hero. And I’m sure Christopher Nolan could do all kinds of wonderful filmic things with it.”

The professors point out that Homer leaves film directors lots of artistic freedom when it comes to the underworld. The official short trailer for Nolan’s film appears to show, very briefly, ghostly soldiers rising up from the ground. This looks a good start, the professors say.

“Scholars have argued for a long time about whether Odysseus actually physically enters the underworld,” Hunter says. “Homer doesn’t make a hard and fast distinction between summoning up ghosts and descending underground. So Nolan has options.”

The film’s full-length trailer features a character who Laemmle suspects and hopes is Elpenor, Odysseus’ comrade and the first of the dead he meets in Book 11. In the trailer, Elpenor asks Odysseus: “who’s looking after your wife and son?”. 

Unlike other underworlds, the Odyssey’s is also largely monster-free, the professors point out.

“It's not a place where Odysseus meets hissing snakes and three-headed dogs,” Professor Laemmle says. “There’s ritual blood drinking, eerie screeching and murky darkness, but instead of brutality, you get Odysseus in conversation with the dead. It’s much more a psychological and emotional event.”

The professors credit Homer with creating the influential impression of ‘a multitude of dead’ by showcasing a selected few.

“The underworld contains everyone who ever lived and died,” Laemmle says. “New people die every day, and so the constellations keep changing, meaning the past is never fixed. This enables dialogues between completely different periods of time. It’s amazing.

“Every writer and artist depicting the underworld uses the Odyssey as a model and adds to it. What is remarkable about Odyssey 11 is that it features so many women among the dead – later underworld narratives are often much less interested in females.”

Hunter says: “Odysseus confronts his own past, and that of his family and his friends. It allows him to reflect on things that might have been for him and weren't, the path he’s travelled. I think the chance for any of us to confront and engage with our past is both appealing and terrifying. Everyone can identify with that.”

The Odyssey's enduring appeal

Both professors admire Nolan for taking on the Odyssey and hope it will inspire a new generation of fans.

Laemmle, a Fellow of Pembroke College, says: “Thousands of writers and artists have played around with the Odyssey so anyone who takes it on is faced with this absolutely crazy history of reception. Christopher Nolan will have had to work hard in his encounter with this many-layered past.”

Professor Laemmle was encouraged by Christopher Nolan’s recent comments on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert in which he described the Odyssey as “the story of stories”. Laemmle says: “This suggests that Nolan has an intelligent take on the Odyssey.”

Hunter, a Fellow of Trinity College, says: “Whatever the film is like, and we hope it's terrific, it will inspire large numbers of people to read the Odyssey in whatever language they choose. That would be a wonderful thing.

“We can't live without the Odyssey anymore. It has such a powerful hold on us because everyone's life is now imagined as an odyssey and that movement towards a desired goal is so capacious and fundamental an idea.”

Reference

Homer, Odyssey, Book XI, Edited by Richard Hunter and Rebecca Laemmle. Cambridge Greek and Latin Classics (Cambridge University Press, 2026). Hardback ISBN: 9781009240918 Paperback ISBN: 9781009240888