How is the underworld described in 'The Odyssey'?

Rather vaguely. It is described as the house of Hades and dread Persephone, a place of 'flitting shadows' (10.495). It is a 'dank abode' (512), a 'joyless place' (11.93), with multiple rivers flowing into it. read more

In the Odyssey, Homer describes more of the conditions of afterlife than the scenery or processes of the underworld. His depiction of Odysseus’s journey to the underworld is “a spiritual adventure and a moment when life and death are brought into contact” (Said, 175). read more

In order to complete his quest home, Odysseus explains that he must enter the underworld (at the advice of Circe) to speak to the wise man Tisereas. Here he meets the spirits of the dead, notably his mother, Agamemnon, Achilles, and Ajax. read more