Compared with the heroic grandeur of the Iliad, the adventures of the wily Odysseus can indeed seem a mere crowd-pleasing romance: travelers' tales, folklore monsters, exotic islands, femmes fatales both mortal and divine, and domestic drama complete with a happy ending—these are the stuff of boys' novels and other light diversions.
Let us recall—Polyphemus is a Cyclops, not human. For that matter, the amount of alcohol Polyphemus consumed indicates that he was smashed, not that his suffering resulted from his other metabolism being different from that of Odysseus. Finally, Polyphemus violates the laws of hospitality and eats two of Odysseus’ men a day. Whatever his cyclopean virtues, multicultural dialogue between Polyphemus and the Greeks seems unlikely.
Of course, the Odyssey is the ancestor of all Western road novels.
Manguel nominates two English versions for acclaim: Alexander Pope's (Iliad, 1715-1720; Odyssey, 1725-26) and the late Robert Fagles's (Iliad, 1990; Odyssey, 1996), using the latter for his citations. As Manguel says, Fagles is rightly "praised for his accuracy and modern ring"; others (like me) prefer Pope's music and nobility.
Violence is not approved of in itself by the Greeks, but all the values that they most admire — the nobility, pride and power, glamour and strength of barbaric chieftains — flourish only in the context of violence and must be fed by it continuously. Failure of these values provokes shame, the opposite of the assumption of responsibility, and shame provokes disaster.
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
A Little Iliad, review by Daniel Mendelsohn of Troy, a film directed by Wolfgang Petersen, New York Review of Books, June 24, 2004
Homer & the power of men that have chests, by Christopher B. Nelson, The New Criterion, November 2003
Morality and Virtue in Poetry and Philosophy: A Reading of Homer's Iliad XXIV, by Hektor K. T. Yan, Humanitas, 2003 No. 1
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