Jessica’s Reviews > The Odyssey > Status Update
Jessica
is starting
The Odyssey is broad and inclusive: it is an epic poem, not in the Iliad’s way, with men and nations massed in the first conflict of East and West, but epic in its comprehension of all conditions of men – good and bad, young and old, dead and alive – and all qualities of life—subhuman, human and superhuman, perilous and prosperous, familiar and fabulous.
— Jun 14, 2026 09:44AM
Like flag
Jessica’s Previous Updates
Jessica
is starting
The Greek critic Longinus described it as an ‘ethical’ poem, a word that Cicero later explained (Orator, 37, 118) by a definition that could well be applied to the Odyssey, ‘adapted to men’s natures, their habits and every fashion of their life'.
— Jun 14, 2026 09:45AM
Jessica
is starting
Homeric characters are quite different from those in a post-Freudian modern novel. Partly, this is because Homer lacks a wide conceptual and psychological vocabulary (there are, for example, no words for 'duty' or 'loyalty' in Homer). Homer's world is one of speaking and doing, where the will is almost the equivalent of the deed, and where motive remains largely unstated.
— Jun 11, 2026 12:02PM
