Homer’s Simile of the Poppy

This summer I joined a group of people who are reading the Iliad, in translation. We read two books at a time. This week we read books seven and eight which included this simile comparing a slumping poppy flower with a head slumping after being killed in battle.

The Greek word METAPHOR means to carry across or transfer from one point to another. One could say that this means to transfer the name of one item to a new one where its applicability may be highly figurative. For Aristotle, the simile is a species of the genus metaphor; indeed similes are metaphors.

Consider two ideas about Homer’s use of simile:

1. The expanded simile, in which the details of the image are developed far beyond the point of comparison, and for their own sake, is one of the chief glories of the Iliad. The simile is a deliberate and highly wrought stylistic device, as careful in its language — which is often untraditional in appearance, because the subject matter is often untraditional too — as in its variety and its placing in the narrative. — G.S. Kirk The Songs of Homer, p. 346.
2. a simile marks a passage as worthy of special attention, slowing down the narrative as expansions and digressions do … it adds colour and a new dimension to whatever is the focus of attention. Besides this, because of its characteristically everyday content the Homeric simile for a moment unites narrator and audience in their world, not that of the heroes, as together they marvel at the mighty deeds of the past. — M. Mueller The Iliad. pp. 108-24.