Is There Early Recognition between Penelope and Odysseus?; Book 19 in the Larger Context of the Odyssey

The larger context of the Odyssey repeatedly portrays all manner of individuals, no matter how astute, even the goddess Circe, as unable to recognize Odysseus when he is before them. This is the poem's favorite use of irony, and is also related to the thematic use of theoxenic myth, in which mortals fail to recognize that the unknown guest before them is a god in disguise. The Odyssey has the verbal formulas to depict a character who does recognize in disguise, but deliberately withholds this information from others: Telemachos at 1.420.