Even if one accepts that Homer's age was more barbaric than our own, the description conveys nothing of a balanced match between equals, only blood and death. This is not to say that the "Iliad" is lacking in tales of great warriors, but that the author was not enamored with conflict and war to the degree that he was immune to its seeder side. Even though Ajax's display is impressive, and merits the man being called by the word "Great" as he often is because of his size and strength, his deployment of this strength in brutal fashion is not given equal admiration as it is warriors that fight fairly, with proper weapons, and with valor.
In contrast, Virgil's chronicle of the sacking of Troy, even in the words of one who suffered greatly because of the unfair, tricked destruction of his native city with the infamous "wooden horse," seems almost beautiful in comparison. While sailing away from the wrecked city that was once his homeland, and facing the turbulent waves stirred up by Poseidon, Aeneas cries:
O, three and four times blessed were those who died before their fathers' eyes beneath the walls of Troy. Strongest of all the Danaans, o Diomedes, why did your right hand not spill my lifeblood, why did I not fall upon the Ilian fields, there where ferocious Hector lies, pierced by Achilles' javelin, where the enormous
Sarpedon now is still, and Simois has seized and sweeps beneath its waves so many helmets and shields and bodies of the brave!" [1.130-144]
Unlike Homer, this cry...
Eumaeus heard the discussion and said: "Don't listen to this girl, she has gone mad after having lost her father, the queen is not ready to pick a suitor yet!" I couldn't tell Eumaeus about my arrangement as he could have ruined it all. After all the suitors had gathered in the great hall, I've locked all of the doors so that none could escape my father's revenge. My father
Virgil and Homer -- World Literature The Trojan Legacy: Textual Similarities in the Epics Iliad by Homer and Aeneid by Virgil In the study of world literature, it is essential that one must know about the earliest forms of literature, especially the works of Homer and Virgil. Homer, considered one of the greatest literary writers of Greek literature, was said to have composed his great epic poems, Iliad and Odyssey, during 8
Virgil's epic poem "The Aeneid" is often described as the poet's response to Homer's epics "The Iliad," and "The Odyssey" in that it details the Trojan War and its aftermath from the Roman perspective. It is a Roman claim to great and far-reaching origins, and because of this apparently patriotic purpose, many classical scholars have attributed the poem's inspiration as Virgil's attempt to praise the emperor Augustus. However, to ascribe
S. Eliot to Robert Frost. According to Theodore Ziolkowski,"Virgil has permeated modern culture and society in ways that would be unimaginable in the case of most other icons of Western civilization" (ix). In the Aeneid, Virgil through out the story emphasizes through his characters that responsibility is of higher precedence than of love. He makes it apparent in Book II, in which Aeneas focuses on his responsibilities rather than on his
Finally, Virgil's presence throughout the Divine Comedy is there for a philosophical reason, as well; he is meant to represent the clarity of reason in a spiritually chaotic universe. Homer, author of the great epic the Odyssey, also appears in Dante's Divine Comedy, in the Limbo section of the Inferno. Homer was also the author of the Iliad, which tells the story of the Trojan War. Homer's presence in Dante's
Dante's Inferno And The Heroic Quest Like Homer's "The Odyssey," and "The Iliad," Dante's "The Inferno" begins with a kind of god's eye view of the world. However, rather than the gods looking down and squabbling about the morality of humans they see, Dante begins with his hero's face-to-face encounter with the divine, or at least a representative of the divine, the pagan poet Virgil. Virgil will be the poet's first
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