SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN HOMER'S BIG WORKS

In Greek literature, Homer was so important, not just in Greek literature also he was a very important poet in the world and for literary history. Still today, we can easily say he is a legend. After him, many poets and writers in the world patterned to themselves his works. For example, the Roman writer Virgil, and his Aeneid or Shakespeare. So, in the archaic period, Homer composed two legendary epic poems. One of them is the Iliad, and the other one is the Odyssey. Our main purpose should be to mention these two works' similarities and differences.

Firstly, I want to talk about our poet, Homer. He has dominated both Greek literature and Western literature with his two important works, which are the Iliad and the Odyssey. As I said before, I will talk about the differences and similarities between these two works but before moving on to these works, there is a few more information I would like to add. Some have said Homer was a blind poet or had a theory that "The Odyssey" is the continuation of "The Iliad." So far, literature history knows only this; because, at that time, people only tell stories, not writing. So because of the effect of oral values, litterateurs can only speculate about Homer and his work.

Now, I would like to give information about the subjects of these two works so that they will be easy to compare. Starting with the Iliad first because it is the first written or narrated work. The poet Homer, in his Iliad, tells about a subject that is known to the whole world and whether it is a legend or not, which is still discussed today. This story is about the Trojan War. It can easily be said that this is actually a very long poem. It can be thought that it was written in the 7th or 8th century and consists of 24 chapters or 24 books. Although it does not tell the whole Trojan War but includes certain days, the work includes a lot of details about before and after the events. Many characters are seen in the work, and although most of them appear as the main characters, the most memorable character in the work is Achilles. In addition, the most important and main characters can be listed as Helen, Hector, Agamemnon, and Paris.

On the other hand, it is observed that the subject and characters change when the second and later work is written or narrated. The story told in Odyssey is entirely about a journey. It's a 10-year-old homecoming story. Here, the hero is Odysseus, which is a character from the other work. It tells the story of the hero's return home after the Trojan War.

I think the essay can be continued with differences after that. First of all, the first thing that stands out is that the two works have different subjects. One is about a war, while the other is about a journey. While The Iliad covers a short period, the Odyssey covers a decade. To talk about the more detailed differences, it is noticed that there is no concept of good and evil in the Iliad. For this reason, it is not possible to talk about a clear morality but when you look at the Odyssey, it is possible to say good guys versus bad guys. For this reason, it is possible to see significant mortality. In order to understand these concepts, it will be more useful to explain with examples. In my opinion, the absence of bad and good in the Iliad may be due to the existence of war because in a war there are no goods and bad people; only there are ambitious people. In The Odyssey, on the other hand, the concept of good and bad frequently arose as the hero's way home was told, and the hero himself is, of course, included in the good guys' section.

Another difference could be supernatural characters or elements. Although gods are included in both works, supernatural beings are hardly included in The Iliad, instead of more human and human power is used. In The Odyssey, on the other hand, although it has an implicit expression, supernatural beings are more common than other works. To give an example about the gods and their supernatural powers, in "Odyssey," the Gods seem a little more kind or helpful. Athena supports Odysseus and tries to help him in any way she can, and all but Poseidon want to see Odysseus return to Ithaca but in The Iliad, all the gods and goddesses do something for their own good or just take orders from the more powerful themselves. For example, Aphrodite, by her nature, personified sexual desire in The Iliad helps Paris so that Helen can return to his bed and Aphrodite can enjoy her honor sexual act.

When continuing with the differences, it is impossible not to mention the heroic codes in the works. The Iliad has the traditional heroic code, while The Odyssey has the new heroic code. So what do they mean? In traditional heroic code, the important ones are their country, glory, straightforwardness, and no trick codes. This explains why the heroes fight. What happens in The Odyssey is concepts such as tricksters, patience, and duplicity. If it is necessary to complete these with examples, Achilles from The Iliad can be given as an example. Knowing that he would die just for glory, he joined the war just to become a legend. However, in the Odyssey, Odysseus overcame many difficulties and reached his home thanks to his quick wit.

Considering that this much difference is enough, it is useful to talk about some similarities. Although I think that the similarities are not as many as the differences, they also have many similarities. At the beginning of these, it can be said that the owner of the works is the same; that is, they come from a single creative brain. It is an indisputable subject of similarity that the two are epic tragedies. It is an undeniable fact that he includes many Greek gods and goddesses in his two works. Moreover, in both works, the same elements are used in their structure and shape and these two epic poems consist of 24 books. The continuation and flow of the books are also the same.

As a result, I compared the two works in terms of similarity and difference in the essay I wrote. While it has many similarities, I think it's more their differences. However, the conclusion that can be drawn from this is that while the works of the same poet are narrated at the same time period contain very opposite extremes; they can also contain very similar ones.