Brodsky's resigned Odysseus versus Homer's determined hero-the differences between Homer's epic and Brodsky's short poem "Odysseus to Telemachus"
             Homer's "Odyssey" is an epic poem that was a source of national pride to the ancient Greeks, while Joseph Brodsky's poem "Odysseus to Telemachus is a short, dramatic monologue, written in the singular, first-person voice of Homer's hero. Homer's epic defined Greek values of cleverness and strength for an entire population for centuries while Brodsky's is a personal work, an exploration of the relationship of a father to a son. Of course, both the Greek epic and the 20th century poem that inspired by the earlier work deal with the complex relationships between fathers and sons. After all, he "Odyssey" begins with Telemachus' quest to discover if his father is still alive, and to fulfill the reputation for valor and cleverness won by Odysseus during the Trojan War. But Brodsky takes a more psychologically oriented approach to Homer's work. Rather than telling a tale of a hero, Brodsky's poem tells of a fraught father-son relationship based upon a man's individual sense of loss, rather than the fulfillment of a man's destiny that occurs at the end of Homer's epic.
             Some of the insights about the futile nature war are common to both Brodsky and Homer's versions of the Odysseus tale. Homer mourns the loss of so many Greek men for the futile cause of saving Helen after she absconded with the Trojan hero Paris. However, while Homer came from a society that viewed war as a necessary evil, Brodsky regrets the existence of war in general, and suggests it might not be necessary at all for society to function. There is no glory, even in doing one's duty, in Brodsky's vision of war. He states at the beginning of the poem, regarding the conflict that Odysseus cannot even: &qu...