Figurative language is used to affect one’s feelings, and consequently, to emotionally move the reader to a desired conclusion. In modern language as well as in ancient songs and poetry, figurative language is a frequently employed tool used by the author to transmit an idea or a feeling. Through comparisons, they make the most banal come alive. The elements carry the reader from the superficial to the profound. As Donald Hall states, figurative language are “modes of thought, flying across barriers of logic to assert identities.” Homer is no exception. Through the use of figures of speech, he guides his reader to a deeper understanding of multiple themes. By using familiar, yet vivid comparisons, we are affected either positively or negatively, but either way, we react. Homer uses figurative language about nature to help the reader view the world as a Greek would. Nature becomes the viewpoint which guides our understanding of Greek views on death, life, and war.
The Iliad is a view
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To a modern reader the language he wrote with adds both drama and tools to understand the Greeks view on life. The Greeks glorified War. They gave it the utmost importance and honor. Homer wrote about it with such intensity. Intensity which can be seen in his use of metaphors and similes. In Book IV, the presence the Greek army has on their enemy is illustrated through a goatherd seeing an incoming hurricane; “Think how a goatherd off on a mountain lookout spots a storm cloud moving down the sea ... miles away he sees it building black as pitch, blacker, whipping the whitecaps, full hurricane fury-the herdsman shudders to see it, drives his flocks to a cave…”(IV, 316-320). This metaphor completely expresses the image of the Greek army. Homer’s uses of figurative language helps the reader find a more relatable comparison. Thus build upon the understanding of the present and power of the Greeks in