How does the Odyssey compare to the Iliad? Does the Odyssey want us to compare it to the Iliad? (Catherine Project 7)

 Catherine Project, Spring 2024, Homer -- Response 7,  Od. 1-4

How does the Odyssey compare to the Iliad? Does the Odyssey want us to compare it to the Iliad?

Whenever I read the Odyssey, I find myself constantly comparing it to the Iliad. Obviously the two epics are closely related. But Is this world exactly the same world? Are these exactly the same characters, the exact same details of plot, the same themes? Like, on this read I noticed some small details (putting aside the old chestnuts like Hermes as the gods’ messenger instead of Iris):

• Nestor’s “nine settlements” (Od. 3.7) do match the number of named cities in the Catalogue of the Ships (Il. 2.591).
• Telemachus’s claim of Nestor “they say he has been lord over three generations / of men” (3.245-6) is similar to the Iliad’s “In his time two generations of mortal men had perished… and he was king in the third age” (1.250-2), and perhaps is a direct allusion to that Iliad passage (“they say” -> the Iliad says?).
• But heroes in the Odyssey do not wear breastplates (e.g. Od 1.256 “wearing a helmet and carrying shield and two spears;” cf. 22.101-115), and in fact the word is never used in the Od. (θώρηξ thôrêx). In the Iliad the breastplate is an important and frequently mentioned part of the armor (e.g. Il. 15.529). 

Generally though the Odyssey just feels completely different to me in its themes and style: 

• long, lengthy conversations about the past without clear purpose (e.g. 1.158-318)
• so much deceit, disguise, and recognition. In these books there are multiple examples where we might wonder whether characters have already recognized one another. Like Od. 3.222: does Nestor hope that Athena will favor Telemachus because he already knows that she does, even before she reveals herself at 3.375? Or 4.112f: does Menelaus single out Odysseus and Telemachus (!) because he already suspects Telemachus’ identity, before Helen immediately identifies Telemachus on first glance? Nothing like this in the Iliad.
• Gods that punish wrongdoing and care about justice (3.132-3, 4.351, 4.806-7; though 1.32-43); Zeus only cares in the Iliad about punishing wrongdoers in that exceptional simile at 16.385f.
• Professional singers, including singers who sing stories of Troy (!): Phemius at 1.326-7, the singer left to watch Clytemnestra at 3.267, and lots more even in these books. 

The stories of Troy that we actually see do not contradict the Iliad, but also do not seem closely related to the specific story of the Iliad. Yes, Achilles is mentioned a few times, and more surprisingly Patroclus once (3.109-110); but those mentions are outweighed by Trojan War events outside the Iliad. Some of these stories the Iliad seems to know, e.g. Philoctetes’ return to war (Od. 3.190 vs. Il. 2.724-5), the homecoming of Achilles’ son to Phthia (Od. 3.188-9 vs. Il. 19.330-3), and Antilochus’ death to the son of Dawn (4.187-8 vs. maybe Il. 23.555-6). But some it does not, e.g. Ajax’s death (3.109), the Trojan Horse (4.271f) and Nestor’s “for nine years… trying them / with every kind of stratagem (3.117-8). Both the Iliad and the Odyssey appear to be working off a shared set of Trojan War myths without directly interacting with one another. 

But does the Od want us making these comparisons at all? It certainly invites comparisons through its structure: these first four books reintroduce us to key characters from the Trojan War story and dwell on the past. But it seems unlikely to me that the Odyssey wants us to be closely comparing it with a specific telling of the Trojan War story (like the Iliad) – I can’t imagine the breastplate thing is meant to be thematically significant. Rather, it seems to me that the Odyssey wants us to think about how its particular interests (especially deceit) are already part of the Trojan War, and to think about the relationship between the heroic past and the less heroic present for its audience (manifested in Telemachus).