The Mediterranean has often served as the setting for stories of sea voyages, dramatic shipwrecks, and isolated island life. This course takes students on a journey through the literature of this maritime world, beginning with the ancient Greeks of Homer’s Odyssey and Sophocles’ Philoctetes. Along the way we will travel further afield to examine how overseas exploration and colonialism in the Renaissance are reflected in Shakespeare’s Mediterranean plays. To end, we will return to the themes of Homeric epic and Sophoclean tragedy as observed through the lens of New World post-colonialism in Derek Walcott’s updated treatments of travelers lost and found in the Mediterranean.