Romance

Most of the different subgenres of myth the Odyssey employs are subordinated under the broader rubric of “the return of Odysseus.” Odysseus' return, his voyages from Troy to Ithaka, and vanquishing the suitors constitutes the organizing framework of the entire epic (much as the strife between Akhilleus and Agamemnon provides the larger framework within which the Iliad incorporates other different types of myth), from Book 1 to Book 24. Even theoxeny, in this respect, is subordinated under “the return of Odysseus” because the destruction of the suitors is presented as necessary to the hero regaining control of his home. The Odyssey has a specific term for a hero's return from Troy, nostos . But the Odyssey does not use nostos to denote a type of myth, but merely to designate the act of a return. The Odyssey uses nostos not only of Odysseus' return, but also those of Nestor, Agamemnon, and Aias, narratives that employ radically different motifs, and which are, in fact, different genres of myth than that which the Odyssey uses for Odysseus' return. The other nostoi do not help construct a context for interpreting Odysseus' return, except by serving as foils (Menelaus' nostos is a partial exception, containing several motifs in common with Odysseus' own return). Instead, the Odyssey figures Odysseus' nostos within the well-defined conventions of another kind of traditional narrative, romance .

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