HOMER: The Odyssey [Book II]

In Book II of Homer’s Odyssey, Telemachus summons the suitors of Penelope and the chiefs of the city to a meeting. At the meeting, Telemachus formally commands the suitors to leave his house. He also seeks aid from the city’s chiefs to expel the suitors from his estate and to provide him with a ship so that he can sail to Pylos and Sparta to learn about the wanderings of his father, Odysseus. The suitors and the chiefs both deny Telemachus’ demands. However, the goddess Minerva provides Telemachus with a ship and crew. That night, Telemachus and the crew secretly set sail for Pylos.

HOMER: The Odyssey [Book I]

In Book I of Homer’s Odyssey, Homer invokes the aid of a Muse to help him recount the story of Odysseus’ return home to Ithaca after the Trojan War. The story begins nearly ten years after the war. Odysseus still has not returned home. A nymph named Calypso, has detained him on her island, and she intends to make him her husband, but Jove and the other Olympian Gods decide that the time has come for Odysseus to return home.

TOLSTOY: War and Peace [Book I-VIII]

Russian author Leo Tolstoy published his novel, War and Peace, in 1869. The novel depicts the lives of several Russian nobles during Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in the early 1800s. The title, War and Peace, symbolizes the war and peace among nations, among individuals within one society, and among different desires within an individual.