Passage B
Of Homer’s two epic poems, the Odyssey has always been more popular than
the Iliad, perhaps because it includes more features of mythology 26 readers.
Its subject (to use Maynard Mack’s categories) is “life-as-spectacle”: for readers,
27 by its various incidents, observe its hero Odysseus primarily from without;
the tragic Iliad, however, presents “life-as-experience”: readers are asked to identify
with the mind of Achilles, 28 motivations render him a not particularly likable
hero. In addition, the Iliad, more than the Odyssey, suggests the complexity of the
gods’ involvement in human actions, and 29 that modern readers find this
complexity a needless complication, the Iliad is less satisfying than the Odyssey,
with its simpler scheme of divine justice. Finally, since the Iliad present a
historically verifiable action, Troy’s siege, the poem raises historical questions
30 the Odyssey’s blithely imaginative world.
【題組】27. (A) digressed (B) diverted (C) divided (D) divisive