Homer

A Hero's Perspective There once was a poet named Homer Whose hero was quite the bold roamer. Avenger he was Triumphant because ‘Odysseus’ is not a misnomer. The name Odysseus translates as wrathful, and that is fitting because he fought his way home through dangerous adventures. In Homer’s poem The Odyssey, Odysseus was…

give up his kidnapped woman rather than Achilles, the greater warrior. Homer casts Achilles in the light of the besieging hero and Agamemnon as the greedy king who cares more for wealth and honor than his men’s lives. As the book progresses and insults traded, Homer switches sides as Achilles removes himself from the battle. Homer reveals his true support not for the character, but the greater good of the Achaean war effort. Homer shows his audience that Agamemnon is not upset about returning…

Homer once stated “what he greatly thought, he nobly dared”. These words eloquently written in Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey, capture how Odysseus’ personality traits and attributes positively affect the hero status he has earned. His courage, wisdom, and intelligence drive his quest to return home to be reunited with his wife Penelope, and son Telemachus. Over the span of twenty years, Odysseus, pushed to the limits physically through battle, uses his will and perseverance to come out a hero.…

Eumaeus, the swineherd of Odysseus, is an important character that Homer depicts within the poem of The Odyssey, and one very interesting aspect of this character is his characterization of loyalty. Homer establishes loyalty as a strong and vital characteristic of Eumaeus through the passage in Book Fourteen in which the swineherd is introduced into the poem, approximately from lines 40 through 85. This portrayal of the theme of loyalty through the character of Eumaeus is a crucial aspect of The…

blind. Homer, the greatest epic poet, was also the first. He is arguably the most influential man in the history of western literature. Homer was born around 850 BC, and was the first to document the events of the war of Troy, which had occurred over 400 years before him. His account of the war was very important for both the people of his time, as well as modern peoples, as it was the first account of an influential war, as well as influencing every other writer of the time period. Homer was…

the lives of both Homer and Chretien de Troyes may have been. Using their works, and context clues within them, assumptions have been drawn about where, when and how these two may have lived. Homer and de Troyes are speculated to have come from completely different time periods and contain different writing styles, but the mysteries that surround them both are very similar. The lives of these historical authors are two of the greatest literary mysteries in the world. Homer for instance, was…

In Homer’s epic The Odyssey, the poet narrates a story of the homecoming of the Greek hero Odysseus after the Trojan war. Through narrating his readers Odysseus’s journey home, Homer gives many instances where women, mortals and immortals, have contributed to the success of the homecoming of Odysseus, indicating the importance of women during the Greek hero’s long and suffering journey back home. Odysseus has received numerous help from different female characters such as Athena, Nausikaa, and…

The Odyssey, by Homer, many of Odysseus’ men die during the journey. They die from monsters and gods. One of the men that dies is Elpenor at Circe’s house. When Odysseus reached the underworld, souls of people come and talk to him, in which included Elpenor. He says “After I went to sleep on Circe 's house, I did not notice how to go down again by the long ladder, but fell headlong from the roof; my neck was broken in its socket, and my soul same down to the house of Hades” (Homer 132). This man…

follows shortly after on lines 823-829, refers to Hektor “as a lion [that] overpowers a weariless boar in combat” when he takes the life of Patroklos (16.823; 373). Homer uses these two similes so close to each other to allow us to peer into the different levels at which the war is being fought. The wind simile is a commentary…

pride. Oedipus and Achilles selfish and conceited ways led to their tragic endings. Achilles became filled with anger when he was forced to give up his prize of war Briseis to Agamemnon (Homer lines 185-200). Leading him to ask his mother Thetis to go to Zeus and ask him to help the Trojans beat the Greeks (Homer lines 425-450). Zeus granted her his help and the Greeks begin to lose the war. Agamemnon tried to make amends with Achilles by offering him several gifts. Achilles was filled with too…