Since Mentor, Telemachus's advisor in Homer's Odyssey, gave name to the figure of the "wise teacher," fictional representations of mentoring have permeated different classic and contemporary cultural texts of different literary genres such as fiction, poetry, and life writing. The contributions of this volume analyze this narrative of mentorship that offers a mirror and also a narrative practice through which ageist views of later life (and also of youth) may be undermined, while it at the same time enables a study of questions relevant to wisdom in old age.
