Practice question · Put in order
The Odyssey's events, arranged in STORY order rather than the order the poem tells them.
- Odysseus' wanderings, including the Cyclops
- The fall of Troy
- Arrival among the Phaeacians
- Seven years on Calypso's island
- The return to Ithaca and the killing of the suitors
Hints
- Story order is the order events actually happen, not the order the poem gives them.
- The wanderings come before Calypso, and both precede the Phaeacians.
Show the answer
- The fall of Troy
- Odysseus' wanderings, including the Cyclops
- Seven years on Calypso's island
- Arrival among the Phaeacians
- The return to Ithaca and the killing of the suitors
Why
The poem itself begins in the tenth year, with the wanderings delivered as a four-book analepsis narrated by Odysseus himself. In story order the sequence is straightforward; the poem's achievement is that its discourse order is not.
Practise Narratology I. Story, Discourse and Order
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