What are the characteristics of Homer's epic?

Homer's epic originated in the prosperous period of myths and legends and heroic stories in the history of ancient Greek literature. The whole work is not only rich in content and fascinating in plot, but also reaches a high level in art. First of all, its grand scale and ingenious conception are a major feature of the epic structure. Both epics show the social, political, economic, cultural, military and other aspects of the transitional period of ancient Greece on an unprecedented scale, covering the historical events that occurred in the past two decades. However, the epic does not directly describe its whole process, but adopts a highly concentrated and generalized creative technique, which not only highlights the key points, but also takes into account the overall situation. Based on Achilles' anger twice, The Ilion highly concentrated the plot in the fifty-one days of the last year of the war, but only described what happened in nine days. Odysseus first describes Odysseus' 42-day experience at sea before returning to his hometown Ithaca, and then shows his 10-year experience at sea in flashback. At the same time, with Tremaco looking for his father and family reunion as a clue, the whole article echoes from beginning to end and is seamless. This structural layout makes the plot of the whole poem fascinating and full of drama. Secondly, epic is written in natural and plain spoken language, using a lot of expressive skills of oral art, such as exaggeration, contrast, metaphor, fixed modifiers, rhetoric and so on. The application of these artistic techniques is inseparable from its structural characteristics of taking the overall situation into account and highlighting key points. Exaggeration, contrast, metaphor and other techniques run through, making the whole poem magnificent and heroic; It is also expressive when portraying characters, such as using the surprised expressions and whispering actions of the elders when they see Helen to contrast their amazing beauty, and using the eagle chasing pigeons to compare Achilles' pursuit of Hecktor. At the same time, the use of fixed modifiers effectively highlights the personality characteristics of characters, such as "agile Achilles" and "resourceful Odysseus". The use of repeated idioms reflects the characteristics of works originated from oral art, which is conducive to deepening the impression and forming a sense of rhythm. According to statistics, the whole poem repeats about 9000 lines, accounting for one-third of the length of the whole poem. In a word, the reason why the whole work has epic momentum and can create vivid characters is precisely because of the introduction of folk oral art. Thirdly, the unique rhythm of poetry itself and the rich imagination derived from myths and legends greatly enhance the appeal of the work. Epic adopts short verse style, six steps and no rhyme ending, which makes the whole poem full of rhythm and elasticity. Ancient Greek mythology itself contains colorful imagination. Integrating them into poems with unique expressive force adds romanticism to the whole poem on the basis of realism. Since ancient times, Homer's epic has been regarded as the epitome of ancient Greek culture. In this work, people can not only enjoy colorful myths and legends and magnificent heroic stories, but also learn a lot of knowledge about astronomy, geography, history and philosophy, which can be used as a model for literary creation. Since the fifth century BC, people have been reciting Homer's epic at the celebrations held every four years in Athens, ancient Greece. Many famous writers in later generations, such as Virgil, Dante, Milton, Goethe, etc. Draw creative materials from the epic and stimulate creative inspiration. The great influence of Homer's epic in the history of European literature and cultural development will make it irreplaceable forever. There is another answer, for reference only, that is, the epic era or the childhood of human beings, but this Homer epic has reached an amazing level under the historical conditions at that time. The ingenious and complete structure of Homer's epic. The Iliad begins by saying, "The anger of Achilles is my theme". The whole article organizes materials around the plot clues of his anger and appeasement, forms a complete whole, and selects the wonderful war part to describe, which is conducive to highlighting the heroic thoughts worthy of praise in the epic and shaping the heroic image. The main plot is like the backbone of an epic. In this brace, the epic also contains many episodes. It accounts for about 2/3 of the whole poem, and the combination of trunk and episode makes the whole poem like a big tree, with distinct trunk and lush foliage, which is even more magnificent and plump. Epic has also made great achievements in characterization. The main way to create a character image is to put the character in a certain situation, describe the character's language and movements in detail, and express the character with exaggerated techniques and gorgeous poems. The epic poem is beautiful and beautiful, adopts a short six-step verse style, has no rhyme, has a strong sense of rhythm, and is in harmony with the content to be expressed in the epic. Some skills are closely related to the art of recitation, which has become a model in the history of European literature. Epic also has rich and magnificent imagination and wonderful metaphor. Therefore, the whole poem is full of life and colorful.