The World of Odysseus

That the Homeric Poems, the Odyssey in particular, are 8th c. depictions of the 10th c. Greek world supported by analysis of anachronisms in the poem and material evidence of Mycenaean culture not matching descriptions in the poem. Linguistic, critical, and anthropological evidence that the poems were composed orally. A careful analysis of gift-giving culture and the the guest-friend relationship: the economics and social structure organized around kinship, the household (oikos) and the authority of a first among equals kingship. The transition-in-progress from a heroic age to the early stages of a polis-centered system.