A very great Iliad... concerns the creation of a nation.

One can easily classify all works of fiction either as descendants of the Iliad or of the Odyssey.

The Iliad is the private lives of people thrown into disorder by history.

It doesn't seem to me that anyone has discovered much that's new since the Iliad or the Odyssey.

Fiction has consisted either of placing imaginary characters in a true story, which is the Iliad, or of presenting the story of an individual as having a general historical value, which is the Odyssey.

It seems to me that an author who has determined very new domains in literature is Gertrude Stein.