The Epicness of Epics

Throughout our reading of the Odyssey and even in the Iliad we have mentioned many times in class how parts of the epic poems are similar to other stories, myths, and even some religious beliefs, whether Christian or not.  It really got me thinking today about how much the novels have affected our literature today.  For example, our ghost stories today are mainly centered around souls having unfinished business on earth, normally associated with their death.  Well, down in Hades, almost all those spirits talk about is how they died.  If Agamemnon could haunt anyone, he would most certainly be spooking his wife for the rest of her life, and it would take for a wonderful ghost story.  When talking in class today, we mentioned that the Laistrygones and their civilization (or in some ways lack of one) is similar to the story of the giants in C. S. Lewis' The Silver Chair.  In religion today people still believe in multiple gods that are each in charge on one thing, such as the sea, the sun, the moon, the wind, and so on.  Also, in Plato's dialogues the gods and parables involving the gods are mentioned very frequently.  The people in Greece (if I am correct) saw the epic poems as stories of actual events, just like we Christians today view the Bible.  This makes me wonder, if the stories were viewed so highly, and if these gods were such a large part of the people's religion, AND if Greece was such a large nation, how did their religion just die out?  Is that something that could just happen with Christianity, or Judaism, or any other religion?  These stories have impacted our ways of thought, even into the twenty first century, but as far as religion goes, they really don't seem to have made much of an affect.  I guess this is just some food for thought.  I really just wanted to marvel in how awesome these epics are, and how much they have impacted literature today!

-Susan Berner

P.S. I commented on Becca's post, "Death and Odysseus"