Of Homer’s two epic poems, the Odyssey has always
been more popular than the Iliad, perhaps because it
includes more features of mythology that are accessible
to readers. Its subject (to use Maynard Mack’s cate-
gories) is “life-as-spectacle,” for readers, divert~d b~ its
various incidents, observe its hero Odysseus pnmanly
from without; the tragic Iliad, however, presents “life-as-
experience”: readers are asked to identi~y with the ~nd
of Achilles, whose motivations render hIm a not particu-
larly likable hero. In addition, the Iliad, more than the
Odyssey, suggests the complexity of the gods’ involve-
ment in human actions, and to the extent that modern
readers find this complexity a needless complication, the
Iliad is less satisfying than the Odyssey, with its simpler
scheme of divine justice. Finally, since the Iliad presents
a historically verifiable action, Troy’s siege, the poem
raises historical questions that are absent from the
Odyssey’s blithely imaginative world.