Homer
...ds of the Trojans (Leaf, Iliad). Achilles rejects the Greeks' attempts at reconciliation but finally relents to some extent, allowing his companion Patroclus to lead his troops in his place. Patroclus is slain, and Achilles, filled with fury and remorse, turns his wrath against the Trojans, whose leader, Hector, he kills in single combat (Leaf, Iliad). The poem closes as Achilles surrenders the corpse of Hector to Priam for burial, recognizing a certain kinship with the Trojan king as they both face the tragedies of mortality and bereavement. The Odyssey describes the return of the Greek hero Odysseus from the Trojan War (Homer, Odyssey). The opening scenes depict the disorder that has arisen in Odysseus's household during his long absence: A band of suitors is living off of his wealth as they woo his wife, Penelope (Homer, Odyssey). The epic then tells of Odysseus's ten years of traveling, during which he has to face such dangers as the man-eating giant Polyphemus and such subtler threats as the goddess Calypso, who offers him immortality if he will abandon his quest for home (Homer, Odyssey). The second half of the poem begins with Odysseus's arrival at his home island of Ithaca. Here, exercising infinite patience and self-control, Odysseus tests the loyalty of his servants; plots and carries out a bloody revenge on Penelope's suitors; and is reunited with his son, his wife, and his aged father (Homer, Odyssey). The epics are similar in the following ways. Both epics are written in an elaborate style, using language that was too impersonal and formal for ordinary discourse (Nagy, Poetry as Performance). The metrical form is dactylic hexameter (Nagy, Poetry as Performance). Stylistically no real distinction can be made between the two works. Since antiquity, however, many readers have believed that they were written by different people(Nagy, Poetry as Performance). How the two epics differ from each other is in ways such as this. The Iliad deals with passions, with insoluble dilemmas. It has no real villains; Achilles, Agamemnon...