If I'm going to stake a claim one way or the other, I'll say
The Iliad and
The Odyssey had two different authors. I suppose much of the language is similar (although I'm obviously not qualified to judge the Greek), and clearly the second author was
fully knowledgeable of the first work. But the literary devices and non-sequential narrative of
The Odyssey are so different than the straightforward chronicle of
The Iliad. And as Lattimore pointed out in the introduction, the use of simile and imagery language is more rampant in
The Iliad as well.
A crude and blasphemous comparison:
The Iliad is "Cheers", while
The Odyssey is "Frasier"-- the first using (and perfecting, and defining for all followers) a classic, repeatable chapter-to-chapter formula; the second establishing its own unique identity while expanding the genre's possibilities in a number of innovative directions (language, narrative structure).
Homer II should have included a special credit: "Based on the character 'Odysseus', created by Homer I."
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