From the Odyssey Onwards: Law’s Long and Winding Road

This article seeks to introduce the Odyssey into the law and literature canon by delineating a continuum leading toward the generative legal narrative presented in the Oresteia, along the course of which the Odyssey is a significant milestone. As will be elaborated, the Odyssey presents a potent contemplation of reckoning, retribution, justice and public order. In the Oresteia, due to the convergence of poetic, performative, and sociopolitical factors, this contemplation evolves into a generative legal narrative. Both of these great works are meaningful stations on law's long and winding road.