chapter 25 the Iliad and the Odyssey are the primary models for all the Greek novelists. In the language of modern literary criticism, we would say that homeric epos is a necessary hypotext for those fictional prose stories that Greek literature increasingly produces starting from the late hellenistic period. this is true in the first instance for the structure of the novel: a standard Greek novel is nothing else but a rewriting of the Odyssean plot. If we reduce the Odyssey to its nuclear core, the poem is the story of a man (Odysseus) who leaves his home and his family and fights for many years against misfortunes of every kind before coming back to his land and being reunited with his wife (penelope). the Odyssey obeys a principle of circularity both spatial (from Ithaca to Ithaca) and temporal (Odysseus' house after the hero's return regains its ancient splendor, as it was before his departure). the ultimate meaning of the poem is concentrated in the long scene of Book 23, where "he" and "she" are finally together in their wedding bed, as they were every night in the good old days, and tell in turn what they have passed through: the past and retelling the past become conditions for a re-appropriation of self-identity. thus, we have a first point: the "compatibility" of the Odyssey with the standard contents of the Greek love novel. Like the Odyssey, a Greek love novel tells about two lovers who are separated by destiny and undergo a long sequence of misadventures: they travel by sea, face terrible dangers, and must resist the attempts of insidious seducers until they are reunited and can enjoy a happy life together. No wonder the Odyssey has been called "the first Greek novel," and Greek romance has been considered a kind of new epic, adapted to the habits of a post-literate society (perry 1967, 44-54; hägg 1983, 111; reardon 1991, 15-16). the question now is: does the new genre define itself by borrowing themes, patterns, and situations from homeric epic, through a
