Honor, Heroic Deeds, and Tragedy: all concepts that both Greeks and the Scandinavian people, and modern audiences. So it should come as no surprise that the epic poetry produced by both civilizations deals heavily with the aforementioned themes. 'The Iliad ' attributed to Homer, and the 'Nibelungenlied ' whose author is unknown, but has basis in the Poetic Edda and pre-Christian oral tradition.
To begin with, while the Iliad has more or less one official version, the story the Nibelungenlied tells is actually laid out across many different epic works-primarily the Poetic Edda, The Volsunga saga, and the Nibelungelied written in the 1300s. This makes it difficult to trace the full roots of the poetic saga, but despite this fact, all of the stories had previously existed as Oral tradition for a long time. The Iliad and The Nibelungenlied formed their narratives in the same way, however, by grasping at old tales and legends, updating them slightly for the current audience, and telling the story.
For the …show more content…
However, where the Iliad focuses on the tragedy of war honor and revenge, the Nibelungenlied is a tragedy of brotherhood bonds, blind honor, and antagonist behavior. Where the Iliad ends in a blood war that results in the death of many people, the protagonists survived. In the Nibelungenlied everyone except for Attila has died. Each hero suffers due to their fatal flaw-Achilles seals his early death by slaying Hector and desecrating his body, Siegfried is slain because he believes Gunther to be his closest friend and that he would never do anything to hurt him, Kremhield dies because she chose to go to such extreme lengths to attain vengeance. Both Achilles and Siegfried possess near-invulnerability, Achilles with all parts of his body but his ankle, where his mother held him when dipping him in the river Styx, and Siegfried a spot on his back, where the a leaf fell onto him while he bathed in the Dragon Fafnir 's
To begin with, while the Iliad has more or less one official version, the story the Nibelungenlied tells is actually laid out across many different epic works-primarily the Poetic Edda, The Volsunga saga, and the Nibelungelied written in the 1300s. This makes it difficult to trace the full roots of the poetic saga, but despite this fact, all of the stories had previously existed as Oral tradition for a long time. The Iliad and The Nibelungenlied formed their narratives in the same way, however, by grasping at old tales and legends, updating them slightly for the current audience, and telling the story.
For the …show more content…
However, where the Iliad focuses on the tragedy of war honor and revenge, the Nibelungenlied is a tragedy of brotherhood bonds, blind honor, and antagonist behavior. Where the Iliad ends in a blood war that results in the death of many people, the protagonists survived. In the Nibelungenlied everyone except for Attila has died. Each hero suffers due to their fatal flaw-Achilles seals his early death by slaying Hector and desecrating his body, Siegfried is slain because he believes Gunther to be his closest friend and that he would never do anything to hurt him, Kremhield dies because she chose to go to such extreme lengths to attain vengeance. Both Achilles and Siegfried possess near-invulnerability, Achilles with all parts of his body but his ankle, where his mother held him when dipping him in the river Styx, and Siegfried a spot on his back, where the a leaf fell onto him while he bathed in the Dragon Fafnir 's