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Throughout English literature in the many years that it has been around in the
world today, there is nothing more appreciable and recognized work in the area of
English literature. One of the great writers and our main focus in the discussion paper is
going to be the works of the great Homer and his two epics that he wrote in his early
years. Epics are long poems that tells certain stories, but it uses gods, goddesses, and
demigods throughout the story. The two epics that we will be comparing are The Iliad,
and The Odyssey. First will be The Iliad, looking at the structure of this epic and why it
is such a great epic. Also examining how different the two epics are but they are so
closely related telling what happens after The Iliad in Homer second epic The Odyssey.
These two works are so unique and good pieces of work.
After looking at The Iliad’s structure and its own uniqueness and what makes it so
interesting, the next epic is The Odyssey. This is second part of Homer’s sequel, The
Iliad being the first part and The Odyssey being the second part of this famous sequel.
The Odyssey talk about more what happened after the Trojan War and Odysseus
experiences on his way back home to Ithaca. This part of the a paper will go through the
same sequence looking at the structure of The Odyssey, and then shift its way to the
differences between the two epics. These two epics have many similarities in telling
there story and this is what links them together, but therefore there are many differences
in the two that makes them different from each other and so unique and this is what
makes this sequel so great and recognized pieces of work.
The Iliad is written in a dactylic hexameter, and is a long epic that is broken down
into twenty-four books telling the great and honorable story of the Trojan War. Homer
writes it as a narrative style, which is that someone is controlling and telling us the story.
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The twenty-four books are almost like chapters, and they have no title for each book they
are just named as “Book One”, etc. They each have main topics that they talk about such
as the fight between Agamemnon and Achilles “Run away be all means if your heart
drives you. I will not entreat you to stay here for me sake. There are others with me who
will do me honour, and above all Zeus of the counsels. To me you are the most hateful of
all the kings whom the gods love.” (Homer, Book One. Line 174-176). It is found to be
written somewhere in the eighth century BC time, written by Homer himself but some
people believe that it has been edited throughout the epics life. The Iliad was written by
Homer to be orally read to the listener/audience so that the story can be told in great
extent and have a bigger impact. Homer would tell the story himself, this takes great
talent and some do not believe it because The Iliad is composed of approximately 15, 700
lines. So to be able to memorize the whole story it would be very hard so people did not
believe this historical fact about The Iliad
The Iliad tells the story of the battle between the Greeks, and the Achaeans
looking at the two major characters being Agamemnon and Achilles and the battle they
have between each other. The Trojan War lasted about nine years, but the story of The
Iliad just tells the story of the battle in the last few weeks of the Trojan War itself. So
this means that there are many battles throughout the whole Iliad, the main part of The
Iliad are the battles between the Greeks, and Achaeans. This is different from The
Odyssey because it does not really tell much about the battle of the Trojan War and also
there is a lot more fighting in The Iliad. This makes the theme of the story more about
fighting and battle, and the respect that the character gets from the actions he gets and the
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way other characters look at them. The word Iliad is actually rage in ancient Greek, so
the name itself almost tells the reader the main theme of the epic.
The way that The Iliad is written is in a style that does not tell the full story, it just
tell part of a story it usually starts from either the middle or near the end of a story such
as the last few weeks in The Iliad’s case. It is like it just focuses on one main story and
because of this the story becomes more precise and well described compared to other
stories such as The Odyssey. This has many good characteristics because the way it is
written is in such great detail. The Iliad is written in great detail and we can see this
many times throughout the story, this is good because it tells the entire story and it does
not leave anything out so we will understand the whole story behind it. The helps explain
many of the actions the characters take because it tells the reader what is going on and
gives us reason behind these actions. It makes the reader understand the book more
because it really explains what is going on so it helps give reason and understanding.
Also because of this detailed work it makes the reader more involves and feels like they
are almost at the Trojan War. It gets the reader attention early and keeps it throughout
the whole story.
Since the Iliad is and epic poem this means that there has to be god, goddess, and
demigods throughout the epic. In The Iliad there are many different gods, goddess,
demigods that take actions in this story, even some of them are main characters in the
story and have large roles in it. The gods in The Iliad are very involved and have many
interactions between themselves and the humans during battle. A lot of the time these
gods, goddess, or even the demigods interfere with the battle either taking the side of the
Greeks or the Achaeans. Even sometimes the gods begin a fight because of the things
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they do to the humans and the sides that they take. Such as Zeus’s wife trick Zeus in
falling asleep so she can act with the Greeks and help them get an upper hand on the
battle while Zeus is asleep. The reason why these actions that the gods, goddess, and
demigods make are so important is because they can change the way of the battle very
easily. The power of these gods and goddess is incredible and they can make the Greeks
change from losing to winning very quickly, and this happens very often throughout The
Iliad. “if once before you listened to my prayers and did me honour and smote strongly
the host of the Achaians, so one more time bring to pass the wish that I pray for. Beat
aside at last the shameful plague from the Danaans” (Homer, Book One. Lines 453-456)
this quote of Chryses praying to Apollo for help end up with Apollo sending the plague to
help them in battle for nine days causing many problems.
After looking at Homer’s first epic The Iliad it is only right to move on to his
second work The Odyssey. Above we looked at mostly all The Iliad, discussing the
structure of it, and the distinct characteristics that make The Iliad different from The
Odyssey. Now it is time to proceed into Homer’s second great Epic The Odyssey. The
Odyssey is the second part of the sequel that was completed by the great Homer, it was
believed to be written after The Iliad which makes sense because it tells us about the
voyage that Odysseus has after Troy has falling. It is also written in the same style as
The Iliad, meaning that it is only writing about a part of and overall story. It is a made up
of approximately 12, 110 lines so it is a little smaller then The Iliad, but is much different
in another sense because it tells a story that takes place over twenty years and is written
in less lines, compared to The Iliad that was a story that told about a few weeks of the
Trojan War, and is written in more detail, and more lines. Homer wrote The Odyssey to
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be read to the audience and not for them to read it alone, he believed that the audience
would get more enjoyment out of the story if it was told to them rather then they read it
themselves.
The Odyssey’s structure is much like The Iliad since they do have the same author
(Homer), but it also has some differences. The Odyssey is written in dactylic hexameter,
and is also broken down into twenty-four books. But each book number there is a title
which gives the reader an idea of what the book is going to be about, and example of this
would be “Book One” (Homer) is also referred to as “Athene Visits Telemachus”
(Homer). So this gives an idea to the reader of what the main idea of this book will be.
This is a new feature compared to The Iliad because of the title for each book.
The Odyssey is the story about Odysseus, and his voyage home after the Trojan
War. Odysseus was a Greek so after Troy fell he was to travel back home to Ithaca to
meet his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. Odysseus left his family knowing that
there was a chance that he would not return and that he would die in battle, so he
promised his wife that after their son grew up to remarry. Odysseus was away from
home for almost twenty years, so this meant that it was time for Penelope to remarry
although she did not want to, she was just doing as Odysseus told her too. The Story of
The Odyssey tells the story of the incredible risks, and great lengths that Odysseus will
go through on his voyage back home to his family. Odysseus will have to go through
many obstacles, and many battles to get back to save his family in Ithaca.
The plot and theme of this story is a lot different from The Iliad, because The
Iliad is more about fighting and War, whereas The Odyssey is about much more than just
that. The Odyssey is more about family, love, and brains whereas The Iliad that is about
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glory, rage, and warlike characteristics. Throughout the story of The Odyssey Odysseus
uses many intelligent techniques to outwit his obstacles that he is face through the story,
and this make the reading more interesting because it makes you think about what
Odysseus is going to think about this time to defeat this obstacle. This really makes The
Odyssey different from The Iliad because the way that Homer makes the main characters
a lot different from each other, Odysseus being intelligent and very clever whereas
Achilles being more strength and skillful fighter. The Iliad is more about battle which is
also fun to read, but not as interesting and it does not make you think about it as much.
The big difference between these two great epics would have to be the timeline in
which the story is told. The Iliad uses great detail in telling its story because it only tell
about a few weeks and the end of the Trojan War, whereas The Odyssey doesn’t use as
much detail and it tells a story over a longer period of time which consists of about
twenty years. This is can have good characteristics and bad ones, the good ones being
that it can tell a larger story so that you can get a lot of the story in a shorter amount of
time and still understand what is going on. But the bad aspect of this is the detail that the
story is in might not be as much as the reader wants it to be, it can almost just skim over
certain parts instead of telling what is really going on. This is why the Iliad is so much
different because it tells the story that lasted only a few weeks.
In the epic The Odyssey when it come to the gods, goddess, and demigods that
are in the story it uses a different style to involve them into the story, and it makes it
better then The Iliad. Throughout the story of The Iliad these gods and goddess that take
many actions that almost interfere with the story takes away from the Trojan War, but can
also make things very interesting. In The Odyssey the gods, goddess, and demigods that
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are involved in the story really seem to be more involved in the story and makes it truly a
great epic. Homer incorporates these gods, goddess, and demigods very well in the story
and makes them really important in the obstacles that Odysseus faces on his voyage
home.
Homer wrote two great epics that are so closely related but so different in many
ways that makes them the most noticed epics and a recognized author/poet.
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structures of the two works are very similar using many of the same styles, but they also
have some differences that make them different from each other. This is proven in many
ways and is written above to prove its point, and that is the main idea of this discussion to
paper to recognize that these two epics although so much alike have some differences that
makes them great. Some of the differences between the two epics is the time range that
the epic covers for each, The Iliad being only a few weeks and The Odyssey being about
twenty years. The way that Homer gives the main Characters (Achilles, and Odysseus)
different qualities, and this is incorporated with the themes, because Achilles is a great
warrior he is good at fighting which is the main theme/idea of The Iliad. Whereas
Odysseus is more intelligent and clever so her uses his brain to defeat many of the
obstacles that he has to go through. Also the way that homer uses the gods, goddess, and
demigods in these epics are different and make them interesting to read, and that is why
they are so well-known in the English Literature world today.
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The Battle of Homer’s Epics: The Iliad vs. The Odyssey
Examine the STRUCTURE of the Iliad and of the Odyssey and discuss the differences
between them?
Presented To: Prof. Wood
Presented By: Brent Fraser
Course: English 206
Word Count: 2, 437
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Reference
Homer. The Iliad of Homer. New York: University Of Chicago, 1961. Print.
Homer. The Odyssey. London, England: Penguin Books Ltd, 1991. Print.