Ransom: Genre 1 key example

Ransom is a novel that expands upon Books 22 through 24 of The Iliad, an epic poem written in ancient Greek. The Iliad is traditionally attributed to the blind poet Homer, who most likely composed it as part of an oral literary tradition, which is partially why it was written in meter (specifically, dactylic hexameter). Despite the metrical form of The Iliad (and Malouf’s poetic and lyrical writing style), Ransom is a work of prose. In a further departure from its source, Ransom would not be considered an epic in the traditional sense: the novel centers the interiority of ordinary, unheroic life rather than the splendor of great battles characteristic of epic literature.