Originally Posted by ericoseveins

So sorry for this but as a former classicist I can't keep from this minor objection. The Iliad and the Odyssey are not really meant to be read. Better read than ignored, but they are meant to be whispered and shouted by a storyteller to an audience that is drinking, feasting, and shouting the lines back at the performer like a stadium singing back a refrain under the command of a rock musician. The repetitive lines, character tropes, and battle scenes make a lot more sense if one thinks of it as a hybrid of a universally known earworm pop song and a Marvel movie.