The Iliad and the Odyssey are the two epic poems attributed to Homer, composed in Greek around the eighth century BC. Each has twenty-four books, a division that tradition attributes to the scholars of Alexandria, a few centuries later.
The Iliad, with about 15,700 lines, does not tell the whole Trojan War. It tells the wrath of Achilles over a few weeks in the tenth year of the siege: the quarrel with Agamemnon over a captive woman, the hero's withdrawal, the death of his friend Patroclus at the hands of Hector, the revenge of Achilles and, in the last book, the ransom of Hector's body by the old king Priam. The poem ends with a funeral, and not with the fall of the city.
The Odyssey, with about 12,100 lines, tells the return of Odysseus home, to the island of Ithaca, ten years after the war. It begins with his son, Telemachus, who sets out in search of news of his father while Penelope's suitors occupy the house. Then comes Odysseus himself, who tells his adventures to the Phaeacians, among them the Cyclops Polyphemus, Circe, the descent to the world of the dead and the Sirens, and finally the disguised return, the revenge on the suitors and the recognition by Penelope.
The two poems form a pair: the Iliad is the poem of war and of the glory that costs a life, the Odyssey is the poem of the return, of cunning and of the home won back.
On Clavis: The Iliad, The Odyssey.