Are the "Odyssey" and "The Consul" fundamental to the modern Western canon?
Odyssey The Odyssey ( ; Greek: Ὀδύσσεια "Odýsseia", ] in Classical Attic) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the "Iliad", the other work ascribed to Homer. The "Odyssey" is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second-oldest extant work of Western literature; the "Iliad" is the oldest. Scholars believe the "Odyssey" was composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia.
Themes of The Lord of the Rings Since the publications of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit and The Silmarillion, a wealth of secondary literature has been published discussing the literary themes and archetypes present in the stories. Tolkien also wrote about the themes of his books in letters to friends, family and fans, and often within the books themselves. In his Foreword to the Second Edition of "The Lord of the Rings", Tolkien said that he "disliked allegory in all its forms" (using the word "applicability" instead), and told those claiming the story was a metaphor for World War II to remember that he had lost "all but one" of his close friends in World War I.