As a modern reader who approaches epic poems, he inevitably brings with him some expectations and standards formed over the course of our experiences; one's literary appetite is accustomed to a certain kind of satisfaction, and one of the most valuable rewards of reading these ancient works is having to examine and adapt one's needs to arrive at a greater understanding of the history and function of literature. to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayRoland Barthes writes: "...the aim of the literary work...is to make the reader no longer a consumer, but a producer of the text..."(S/Z, p. 4). To enter into this more than passive relationship with literature, the reader must be able to identify with an element of humanity within a work, must be able to interact with a "hero" that he or she can recognize as absolutely human. For this reason it is tempting to place the epic outside the classification of "literature" outlined by Barthes; Homeric heroes are such in the classical definition of the word: divine-like and superhuman, they are to be admired rather than empathized with or understood. Virgil, however, is strikingly different in this respect; while obviously falling within the epic tradition, it also stood out as a departure from this form and a more recognizable precursor to literature as we know it today. To begin to examine Virgil's departure from the epic it is useful to look at his hero. By comparing Aeneas to Homer's Odysseus, between whom there are apparent and intentional similarities, the reader sees that Virgil's definition of a hero was very different from Homer's. The first similarity between the two heroes is the fact that both are on a journey. Even this apparent similarity highlights a profound difference between the two men; while Odysseus' journey is a homecoming, Aeneas wanders homeless: he is truly more lost than Odysseus ever was. To introduce our hero, Virgil offers us this: "...a fugitive...cruelly tossed on land as well as sea...until he could found a city and bring his gods home to Latium...years [he ] he wandered while [his] destiny pushed [him] from one sea to another..." (1,5-48). In a portentous event at the beginning of Book I, Aeneas's "helmsman" is thrown into the sea. In Book II, Aeneas describes his escape from the burning city of Troy: "...I moved away from the known path, entering by flight into a labyrinth of inaccessible places..." (2.956). Virgil echoes this image of a labyrinth later in Book VI: after landing in Hesperia, Aeneas and his men come across the Temple of Apollo at Daedelus, the walls of which are painted with representations of the myth of the Minotaur and his " ... labyrinth that no one could untangle..."(6.42). In epic terms, this homeless wanderer is a weakness, a vulnerability, at the very least a de-divinization of the "hero." A second correspondence between the two characters is their position as leaders of men. Once again, however, this similarity only serves to highlight another important distinction between the two men. Odysseus' status as leader is presented in such a way as to be beyond question: Homer makes it clear from the beginning that "god-like Odysseus" is not like other men. Aeneas on the other hand has none of the superhuman abilities or attributes that Odysseus displays, and although he is the son of a goddess, nothing in his character suggests the power or reach of the divine: his circumstances are truly forced. him and sometimes seems unstable under their weight. There is an interesting episode after Aeneas's arrival in Carthage when he wanders into the temple of Juno and finds the walls painted with scenes of.