In the last thirty years a great deal of sophisticated work has been done on the notion of metaphor: linguisticians, philosophers, scientists and archaeologists, amongst others, have all joined in the debate. At the centre of the discussion has been the 'location' of metaphor: is it a distortion of ordinary (= 'degree zero') language, or is it, on the contrary, at the very centre of linguistic usage? Far less attention, however, has been devoted to the closely related linguistic-rhetorical figure of the simile. In the recently published Encyclopedia of Rhetoric, for instance, the entry on 'simile' receives 30 lines, as against 258 for 'metaphor'. Yet there are certain forms of literature in which similes forge well ahead of metaphors as regards the insistence of their claims upon readers' attention. A prime example of such a form is Homeric epic.

Before approaching Homer directly, however, I want to ask a preliminary and very basic question. Is there anything to be gained, in spite of all the theoretical elaborations in recent criticism,3 by retaining an elementary, formal, linguistically based distinction between metaphor and simile, according to which a metaphor is a comparison which does not contain a word signifying ‘like’ or ‘as’, whereas a simile is a comparison which – however short or long – does contain such a term? To describe the ocean as ‘like an unfingered harp’ will be, on that formal definition, to use a simile; whereas to observe, with Stephen Spender, that ‘afternoon burns upon the wires of the sea’, will be to employ a metaphor

More than half of the Homeric epics consists of speech by characters, not narrative by the narrator. That is a very high proportion, and the speeches, with their scope, variety, and vividness, are a striking feature of the poems. That was to have momentous consequences. Homer is, as Plato says, the first and greatest of the tragic poets; and without the example of Homer, showing the heroes and heroines of myth conversing in dialogue in a high style, Attic tragedy would never have come into existence in the form that it did. That would have had grave implications for the plays of Seneca, and consequently for all European verse drama, including Shakespeare. It was the Homeric epics which showed how it was possible to present great figures, participants in elevated and significant action, conversing in a manner which was at once dignified and true to convincing human psychology. From Homer the line runs to Aeschylus' Agamemnon and Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. By contrast Virgil, who took so much from Homer, does not excel at dialogue and never has extended conversations. Dialogue in the Aeneid is normally just statement and reply, and a famous scene with Dido is broken off with Aeneas 'still having much to say'.

Can the oldest text of European literature be the greatest ever composed? An epic of killing, unprecedented and sui generis in myriad ways, was perhaps completed before ink and stylus were (re-)introduced to a savage European continent, long after the crash or whimpers of the Bronze Age, citadel dominated civilisation that in some way the poem celebrates. This narrative of and meditation on death, loss and individual decisiveness became and remains fundamental for Mediterranean, European and even transatlantic literature. In the third, computerised millennium, when many still endorse Christian ethics of 'turn the other cheek' but otherwise rigorously forget former canons of honour, beauty and truth, conscientious readers anxiously confront this complex, inexplicable colossus, the Iliad. A provoked but fiercely introspective and precisely responsive young man becomes angry, and this anger trumps his community’s desperate need for help. The consequences of Akhilleus' decisions for himself, his friends and his enemies constitute the Iliad, a uniquely long and uniquely coherent poem by some one or many called 'Homer'. This synoptic consideration of its plot hopes to orient new readers to the story and provoke returning ones to consider afresh the terrifying subject, the various nature of the narrative with its inimitable pacing and episodic units, the characters, and their social and personal values nigh incomprehensible today.

The later twentieth century saw a trend in the study of classical authors from a historical ('diachronic') approach to one that focused more on the author’s own times (a 'synchronic' approach) and on the text itself. Nowhere is this more true than in the case of Homer, where the identification of Homer as an oral poet turned critics inward on his text and its special character. This Homer newly created, or 're-created', each instance of epic for each performance and his work was accordingly part of a largely irrecoverable performance tradition, rather than one in a history of interacting texts.

Nevertheless, we cannot really understand Homer, or the emergence of Greek literature, if we have no idea of the tradition that preceded him and of the different uses made of that tradition by poets of his time. And we should not exaggerate the fluidity of these poems: our Iliad and Odyssey were relatively fixed texts, which could be badged 'Homer', as far back as the sixth century BC and probably a good deal earlier. It is credible that the poems of his contemporaries were fixed to a similar extent, making after all a family of 'texts', with a recognisable intertextuality. Depending on our views of what was fixed and what was improvised, we may differ on the nature of this intertextuality: perhaps it will be easier to accept the recognition of the argument between Achilles and Agamemnon as a typical motif, 'argument between heroes', than to see in the sudden appearance of Thetis to lead the lament over Achilles (23.14), the footprint of a specific epic that depicted Thetis mourning the dead Achilles.

The subject of this chapter - in keeping with its chronological place in this section - is the importance of Homer for English epic up to the end of the eighteenth century. Its rationale, however, is not solely diachronic: the starting point is rather a widely accepted premise that between what goes before and what comes after there is a fault-line in the nature of the availability of Homer to English literary consciousness. A critical event can be readily identified, in the publication of F. A.Wolf’s Prolegomena to Homer of 1795. This work itself is the product of a period of change and questioning: the eighteenth century saw a steady growth in historical, topographical and antiquarian interest in the ancient world. In relation to Homer, Robert Wood had provided one of the most influential landmarks in his investigation, based on travels undertaken in the early 1750s, of Homer’s own time and culture, An Essay on the Original Genius of Homer (1769). Wolf, however, is definitive:

Why Homer?

The Iliad and the Odyssey have been required reading in Western culture from its first beginnings, despite the complete mystery surrounding the circumstances of their date and authorship, and despite their obvious flaws and blemishes - the repetitions, inconsistencies and irregularities which have led to their impeachment as products of a single mind. All of the uncertainties about Homer and his poems notwithstanding, their place in the cultural imagination in the West has been unrivalled. Indeed, as secular texts with no pretensions to revealed truth and yet conferred with nearly Biblical stature, their status in world literature is unique. How can we account for their standing, and especially for their enduring attraction? Whatever the answer, approaching the question will involve confronting the monumentality of the two poems - less their quality as great works of literature than their role as cultural icons, as signifiers of value, and as landmarks in the evolving relationship between literature and culture. To look at Homer in this way is to consider his place - the very idea of Homer - in the culture wars of antiquity and modernity. But it is also to do more, for a perspective such as this is an invitation to study the intellectual and cultural history of value. And given his idealised role in our culture, Homer is an ideal place to begin such an inquiry.