The Maltese Islands in the Odyssey

Abstract

The tradition of a connection between Malta and the Odyssey is a very deeply rooted one both locally and internationally. It has found its way in Maltese popular tradition, which has identified a specific cave in Gozo with Calypso, the nymph who held Odysseus stranded on her island for seven years. It emerges quite frequently even in the literary output of the island, be it in Maltese or in other languages. Some sort of identification of one or several of the Maltese islands with one or other of the islands mentioned in the Odyssey is also frequently proposed in foreign literature, whether of a scholarly and learned nature, or of a more popular and narrative nature. This tradition goes back very far in time.