Para-Narratives in the Odyssey: Stories in the Frame

Para-Narratives in the ‘Odyssey’ offers advice on how to read the Odyssey by examining the relationship between the poem’s main plot and the secondary narratives and episodes in a minor key which frequently suspend its progress. These myriad ‘para-narratives’, expounded by the poet and his characters, are not just entertaining in their own right, but illuminatingly relate to their immediate context and to the central events of Odysseus’ return to Ithaca, elucidating his predicament and also subtly influencing and guiding the audience’s interpretation of the poem.