SOURCE: "The Odyssey," in The Songs of Homer, Cambridge University Press, 1962, pp. 355-71.

An English professor of Greek, Kirk is the author of numerous critical works on classical authors, including several books on Homer. In this essay, Kirk assesses the flaws of the Odyssey, contending that while "the poem is a marvellous accomplishment" it "fails to achieve the profound monumental effect of the Iliad."

The Odyssey is a poem of greater structural sophistication than the Iliad. This is seen particularly in the division of the action between Ithaca, the Peloponnese, Calypso's island, Scherie and, by reminiscence, the scenes of Odysseus's preceding adventures. The coalescence of these parts was in no way beyond the powers of a great oral poet working with the example of the Iliad in his mind and with the help of a highly developed system of formulas and minor themes. Moreover the composer of the...