The Odyssey, Hamlet, and world literature

Following up on yesterday's post, Homer does not begin The Odyssey with the tale of the voyage of Odysseus but rather with the goddess Athena's visit to Ithaca where she inspires O's young (teenage?) son, Telemachus, to embark on a journey of his own to learn whether O is alive or dead. So there are to "odysseys" in The Odyssey, and it starts out with T sailing off to visit some of his father's war buddies to learn what they know, if anything about the fate of his father. Honestly, what a terrific beginning! Everyone knows of O's sufferings but most readers, I think, forget of the suffering of Telemachus - watching the hundreds of suitors for his mother's hand gorge themselves on the food and wine of Ithaca - a humiliating and frightening experience for a young man. Part of the pleasure is spoiled for us as we know, obviously, that O is alive and trying to get back to Ithaca - but imagine reading or hearing this story for the first time: it begins as a story of a young man trying to learn the fate of his long-absent father. This is a great trope for many novels and films and other works of literature; in fact, it anticipates in some ways the struggle of Hamlet - though in this case without the Oedipal overtones - but with many of the same dynamics: the son's hatred of the suitors, the feeling of ineffectiveness, the uncertainty about the father's fate, the need for the son to take action against the powerful. This theme, often overlooked I think, governs much of the action of The Odyssey: it's a saga about journey and return, but also about a young man's maturation, or coming of age if you will - in other words, through both Odysseus and Telemachus, The Odyssey establishes two of the structures or templates that have shaped much of world literature over two millennia.