Telemachus2.0010

Joseph Dufour, panoramic wallpaper series entitled "Paysage de Télémaque dans l'Ile de Calypso," 1818, produced in Paris but hung in many European and American homes.

Homer's so-called "Telemacheia", the education of the son in his fathers' virtues, fills Odyssey 1-4 and 15-24. Ancient myths explained that after Odysseus' death Telemachus married Circe (or Nausicaa).

François Fénelon wrote Suite du quatrième livre de l'Odyssée d'Homère, ou les Avantures de Télémaque, fils d'Ulysse (The Hague, 1699), a didactic prose romance, and published it surreptitiously. Fénelon's narrative introduces plenty of non-classical elements to the story of Telemachus' own journey, what he did within the Odyssey's narrative framework before returning in book 15 to purge the house of Penelope's suitors. Fénelon tells how on Calypso's island, the nymph herself falls in love with Telemachus, but he falls for Eucharis, one of Calypso's attendants. See Telemachus1.0007_Fénelon. Calypso's island became Fénelon's most popular contribution, and the scene at right shows the episode where Calypso spitefully burns Telemachus' ship to prevent his departure.