What an epic movie version means for ‘The Odyssey’ and other classics

Has The Odyssey made the classics cool now?

Are they elitist or universal? Either way, they’re Christopher Nolan’s new film The Odyssey shows they’re going viral, says Eliot Wilson Classics – the study of ancient Greece and Rome, their languages, literature, history and art – is perceived not only as elitist, but as irrelevant, abstruse, without concrete value and self-indulgent. That you could grow up to be like Boris Johnson, who studied classics, is not a promising slogan. But this mon…

What an epic movie version means for ‘The Odyssey’ and other classics

Christopher Nolan’s epic film adaptation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” is generating buzz and is likely to put up big numbers at the box office. It has also touched off a broader conversation about the relevance of classical literature in modern society. Our senior culture writer gathered three experts to talk about why.