what are Homeric or heroic simile?

Answer 1

a silmile is a figure of speech involving a comparison between two unlike entities. In a simile, unlike a metaphor, the resemblance is indicated by the words "like" or "as." Similes in everyday speech reflect simple comparisons, as in "He eats like a bird" or "She is slow as molasses." Similes in literature may be specific and direct or more lengthy and complex. The Homeric, or epic, simile, which is typically used in epic poetry, often extends to several lines.

Answer 2

Here is an example of an Homeric simile:

"Holding his shield before him, and shaking two spears, he went onward like some hill-kept lion, who for a long time has gone lacking meat, and the proud heart is urgent upon him to get inside of a close steading and go for the sheepflocks. And even though he finds hersmen in that place, who are watching about their sheepflocks, armed with spears, and with dogs, even so he has no thought of being driven from the steading without some attack made, and either makes his spring and seizes a sheep, or else himself is hit in the first attack by a spear from a swift hand thrown. So now his spirit drove on godlike Sarpedon to make a rush at the wall and break apart the battlements."

Here the hero Sarpedon attacking the Greek wall is likened to a lion attacking a sheep fold. But the simile takes on a life of its own, and explodes into a colourful description of a scene which is largely irrelevant to the initial comparison.

Answer 3

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