Yankee steamship features in poem with American protagonist (8)
I believe the answer is:
odysseus
'protagonist' is the definition.
The definition and answer can be both people as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?
'yankee steamship features in poem with american' is the wordplay.
'yankee' becomes 'Y' (phonetic alphabet: alpha, bravo, charlie etc.).
'steamship' becomes 'ss' (nautical abbreviation).
'features in' indicates putting letters inside.
'poem' becomes 'ode' (ode is a type of poem).
'with american' becomes 'us' (United States. I am not sure about the 'with' bit.).
'y'+'ss'='yss'
'yss' inserted into 'ode' is 'odysse'.
'odysse'+'us'='ODYSSEUS'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for odysseus that I've seen before include "Voyager" , "Legendary Greek king" , "Homer's mythical Greek hero" , "Ancient king" , "Homer's wandering hero" .)