How is Ulysses related to the Odyssey?
Homer's Odyssey is the ancient Greek epic of Odysseus (in Latin, Ulysses) and his ten-year voyage home from Troy. Joyce maps it onto one Dublin day: Bloom is Odysseus, Stephen is his son Telemachus, and Molly is his wife Penelope. Mulligan is the first to bring up the Greeks.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Several episodes. Buck Mulligan, on the tower roof.
Ah, Dedalus, the Greeks! I must teach you. You must read them in the original.
What it means in plain English
Each episode echoes an adventure: the Lotus Eaters, the land of the dead, the Sirens, the Cyclops, the enchantress Circe, and the return to Ithaca.
The parallels are loose and often comic. Odysseus kills the suitors; Bloom chooses tolerance.
Literary context
Joyce read Homer in Charles Lamb's adaptation, The Adventures of Ulysses, as a boy.
References
- Homer, Odyssey
- Charles Lamb, The Adventures of Ulysses (1808)
- Richard Ellmann, James Joyce (revised edition, 1982)
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Questions readers ask
Do I need to read the Odyssey first?
No. A short summary is enough to spot the echoes.
Related terms
Homeric parallels
The loose mapping of Ulysses onto Homer's Odyssey, with each episode echoing a scene from the ancient poem.
Epi oinopa ponton
“Epi oinopa ponton” is Homer's Greek for “on the wine-dark sea”, one of the Odyssey's best-known phrases. Buck Mulligan quotes it in Episode 1 just after calling Dublin Bay “the snotgreen sea”, mixing Homer's grandeur with Dublin slang.
The Linati and Gilbert schemas
The Linati and Gilbert schemas are two charts Joyce made to explain Ulysses. They list each episode's Homeric title, hour, organ of the body, art, colour, symbol and technique. Joyce sent one to Carlo Linati in 1920 and lent another to Stuart Gilbert, who printed it in 1930.