Odyssey
The Odyssey had the same importance for Greeks as the Divine Comedy for Italians. Both of them are epic poems although nearly two thousand years separate them. Actually, they are connected by similar theme: a journey, in which a main hero goes on during the whole poem.
The poem “Odyssey”, written by Homer, is based on the myth about the Greek hero Odysseus and his journey home after the fall of Troy. After long-lasting Trojan War, Odysseus spent ten years reaching Ithaca - his motherland. The poem itself reflects social and cultural background of Greece at that time. It refers to the fall of imperial authority in the Greek city-states and the initial periods of Ionian trade and navigation. That is why the main hero, Odysseus, is a character of a new type, if compared to those men of dignity from Iliad. The Odyssey is deprived of that heroic pathos, which is a major characteristic of Iliad. Attention is drawn mainly to people’s everyday life, to their manners and customs. So it is not strange that the Odyssey is called an “encyclopedia of the ancient Greeks’ life”.
Dante’s Divine Comedy is also called an encyclopedia because it reflects cultural, social and political situation of medieval Italy. It is considered to be one of the greatest works of world literature. The poem describes Dante's travels through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven as well as it is divided into three parts. Poet’s journey is a symbolic path of searching the truth.
A close similarity between Homer’s and Dante’s poems refers to their symbolic meanings. Thus both main heroes are making an enduring journey. Odysseus is traveling for nine years while Dante is passing by nine circles of Hell, then nine circles of Purgatory and the same sum of circles of Paradise. In the Odyssey, storms had been lasting for nine days before Odysseus got to the land of lotus eaters. Then Aeolus gave nine days of time to Odysseus to get to Ithaca. So the number 9 is common symbol of two poems. As far as travelling lasts during the whole poems for both of the main heroes, that journey is undoubtedly a major metaphor of the Divine Comedy and the Odyssey. The path means maturation. When Odysseus returns home he will meet his wife again:
“You can be sure she's waiting in your home, her heart still faithful”.
Its purpose is to return home enriched by experiences and new knowledge. Having undergone initiation, Odyssey gets more strength and becomes wiser. In such a way he distinguishes between good from evil. In the Divine Comedy the opposition of good and evil is clearly shown during Dante’s travelling to Hell. Evil-doers are making atonement in the different circles of Hell.
“My Master, among such as these
I ought forsooth to recognise some few,
Who were infected with these maladies.”
When travelling, Dante had a leader whose name was Virgil. The Roman poet was a personification of wisdom. But Odysseus was a leader himself: he was in front of his expedition. The main character of Odyssey was only one who was able to overcome all the obstacles and find the way home.
One of the most difficult tests that the main heroes of the poems had to stand is an appeal
of temptation. In the Divine Comedy three main vices of people were presented at the beginning of the poem. Dante got lost in the dark good and met three beasts: a leopard, a lion and a she-wolf. Those three animals were personification of lust, the sin of the young age (leopard), supremacy (lion), avarice and greed (she-wolf).
"All those who perish in the wrath of God
Here meet together out of every land”;
However Dante was guided by Vergil and then Beatrice there were much less appeals of temptation on his way because he was averted in the most of cases. Unlike Dante, Odysseus faced a lot of temptations. He was proposed delicious food in the land of lotus eaters, Calypso proposed love to him and even more, he had a chance to become immortal. But he refused to be satisfied only with earthly pleasures. He was the only one who was able to listen to the singing of sirens, because he was tied to the axis of the ship that is symbolizing the spirit and mind of a man.
Dante in the Divine Comedy proclaimed that cognition is the path to Hell, but mind helps cleanse people to cleanse from sin through repentance (Purgatory). Dante believes that philosophy will repent and purify. Wisdom and faith in God makes human soul close to the divine. It was symbolic that Faith (Beatrice, who meets Dante at the foot of Paradise) can help intelligence. Dante reaches the top of knowledge, and return to earth to teach people to live righteously and justly. Odysseus’s entire journey is a story of confrontation of reasonable and noble (of the Odyssey) and the animal (personified by his companions) beginnings of human nature. The different kinds of adventures symbolize the struggle of the main hero with insatiability, with greed, with animal instincts which are strictly speaking in The Odyssey.
The main heroes of both poems symbolically die: Odysseus is thought to be dead because it has been impossible to find him for a long time; Dante ends up in the new world very different from the real one. Cultural contest of the ages when the poems were written had a great influence on them, but the values and priorities mostly remained the same. Actually, the most important message of poems was that the real life is stronger that otherworldly.
