Of Homer's two epic poems, the Odyssey has always
been more popular than the Iliad, perhaps because it
includes more features of mythology that are accessible
to readers. Its subject (to use Maynard Mack's
categories) is "life-as-spectacle," for readers, diverted
by its various incidents, observe its hero Odysseus
primarily from without; the tragic Iliad, however, presents
"life-as- experience": readers are asked to identify with
the mind of Achilles, whose motivations render him a
not particularly likable hero. In addition, the Iliad, more
than the Odyssey, suggests the complexity of the gods'
involvement in human actions, and to the extent that
modern readers find this complexity a needless
complication, the Iliad is less satisfying than the
Odyssey, with its simpler 'scheme' of divine justice.
Finally, since the Iliad presents a historically verifiable
action, Troy's siege, the poem raises historical
questions that are absent from the Odyssey’s blithely
imaginative world.