World Literature I: From the Ancient World to the Middle Ages - Essay Example

The poetry in each of them is engaging, exciting and appealing, drawing on the readers’ imagination to portray the traditions, culture and life in those years of old. That these literary masterpieces have survived and continue to captivate audiences to this day attests to the striking and arresting way in which they were written as well as the timelessness of their elaborate yet elegant use of language that is used to weave these exciting tales. Both works illustrate the cultures and values of the societies in which they were written, with a firm storyline that basically shows the eventual triumph of good over evil, one - The Song of Roland - through a tragic hero who dies long before the end while the other has a hero who lives to see the inevitable happy ending.

There are a few similarities in the stories of the two great heroes Ronald and Odysseus. They both have a distinguished career as fighters with many successful battles to their name. They also had similarities in character, with both of them being fairly proud and had a tendency to be headstrong and not to heed the advice that they were given. However, there were also a great number of differences, not least of which was the culture and the times that they lived in – they were quite different.

The Odyssey was written between 800 to 1000 BC, and is attributed to the great blind Greek poet, Homer. The hero of the poem, Odysseus is truly a hero's hero, having gone through numerous tribulations and. As he goes through them and eventually overcomes them we see him grow as a human being and earn his title as a hero - through grit and hard work and also learning a great deal from his mistakes (Howell, 2012). Odysseus’ journey to go back home takes over 10 years - in fulfillment of the oracle’s prophesy - during which he learns a great deal about himself and develops both as a person and as a leader.

Odysseus begins life as a headstrong and rather cunning soldier, using his wiles to be the leader during the Trojan War where the cunningness came in handy and his soldiers won the battle. However, it is his travel back that takes him through a meandering and eventful time that he learns a lot and grows as a leader. We see his faults and his flaws when his men win battle and they decide instead of just taking their winnings and leaving, to remain there, looting and enjoying their winning by losing themselves with the conquered women (Spiegel, 1998).

We see the flaws in his character that leads to defeat after this experience but like the true hero that he is, he learns from this and is able to regroup and proceed with his travels towards his home, through even more adventure where he is forced to use clever techniques to overcome the Sirens and survive the Cyclops misadventure. True to the morality of the times, Odysseus is seen as a hero whose single-minded drive to get back home to his wife Pen is as admirable as the fact that he still sees no wrong in spending all the time and journey getting back home in the arms of other women.

The travails of Odysseus do, in a simple yet poignant way, present the view of life in the form of a journey, through which we not only grow but we learn from our experiences and mistakes and in the end become a better person. Odysseus remains a hero from the way he adapts to suit the battle that he is fighting at any given time- be it using a Trojan horse to playing the part of a beggar in order to win over the other suitors who are after his wife (Nordin, n.d.). Ronald’s story is told at the 11th or 12th century, almost 2,000 years after the story of Odysseus.

Ronald was part of the proud French heritage