Virgil vs. Homer in Underworld - 1569 Words

How does Virgil deviate from Homer in the underworld, and why? When comparing â€Å"The Aeneid† to â€Å"The Odyssey†, it is impossible not to notice the similarity between Homer and Virgil s poems. Both heroes leave Troy, granted one barely escapes and the other leaves victoriously, and both in one sense or the other are trying to reach their home, whether it is the old or future home. The adventures of the two heroes are incredibly similar on a number of accounts with the trip to the underworld being most intriguing. First of all it is important to understand that Homer and Virgil wrote their poems for different reasons; Homer s The Odyssey was written for entertainment purposes, while Virgil s The Aeneid was written in order to†¦show more content†¦Aeneas on the other hand is much more focused on the future; he is also trying to get home, but that home does not exist yet, besides that, while seeing his old friends he also finds out about the future of his generations and yet even more about the city he is on his way to establish. This could bring us to the point of Homer s vs. Virgil s reasons for writing their poems; as mentioned earlier, Homer wrote his poem for entertainment purposes. This explains why the majority of book eleven is made up of Odysseus meeting his old friends and great warriors of the war; through telling their stories, Homer entertained the readers and the audience by letting them imagine how the heroes act after their death (what still matters to them, which quarrels have not been forgotten etc.). Virgil on the other hand skips most of the greetings of Aeneas with old friends and focuses instead on the meeting with his father. There, while including sentimentality, the main point of the meeting is for Aeneas and the readers to find out about where the rulers of Rome came from. Aeneas in the underworld gets to see, although not speak to, his future son, the future Caesars and learns all about the glory of the future empire. Even the description of the underworld itself may fal l