With the release of Christopher Nolan’s movie The Odyssey, modern retellings of Homer’s epics have boomed. These retellings can be great tools for helping students find ways into the story of Odysseus’s journey.
Joe Goodkin, a self-described “modern Homeric bard” has performed his musical retelling of the Odyssey nearly 400 times. Goodkin’s Odyssey is an original musical composition for solo acoustic guitar and voice. Drawing on his bachelor’s degree in classics from University of Wisconsin-Madison and his years as a professional musician, Goodkin performs in a contemporary musical mode both the abridged plot and the performance circumstances of Homer’s original oral composition of the Odyssey. Part lecture, part musical performance, and part interactive discussion, the centerpiece of Goodkin’s program is a 35-minute continuous performance of 24 original songs with lyrics inspired by Odysseus’s famous exploits.
Goodkin has performed his Odyssey in all 50 US states, Canada, Greece, Italy, The Netherlands, The United Kingdom, and Ireland, and has been honored with multiple ASCAP Composers awards. He has also adapted the performance for the Zoom/streaming learning environment.
You can read Goodkin’s articles about being a modern bard at the journal Eidolon and Sententiae Antiquae, as well as his op-ed “Five Tips for Teachers on Bringing Homer to High Schoolers” at The 74.
Goodkin has also adapted the Iliad into a song cycle called The Blues of Achilles.