Unmarked Space: Odysseus and the Inland Journey

This paper analyzes the importance of the border between land and sea in Greek thought by asking what it means for Odysseus to walk so far inland that he meets people who have no knowledge of ships or oars. When he leaves the orienting border of the sea behind, Odysseus enters a terrain where he becomes completely lost for the very first time. I argue that the turning of both Odysseus and the Odyssean poet inland looks not only to the end of the poem, but also to the end of epic and the Homeric tradition.