Why are the Illiad, Odyssey, and other epic poems considered poems?
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The Iliad and The Odyssey are in Epic Meter, also called dactylic hexameter.
A dactyl is a “foot” of poetry of a long/strong syllable and two short/weak syllables. Hexameter means there are 6 “feet” in a line, or at least 12 syllables.
A long syllable can be replaced by two shorts in dactylic meter.
In English, a classic example of “shave and a haircut, two bits”. L L L SS LL
In Ancient Greek and Latin, vowel length/strength was important because it changed what a word meant. Word order was also less important in those languages.
In English, our vowels/syllables work differently and we also use a strict word order. So poetry evolved to include rhyming as a way of making it sound more interesting and different from normal speech.
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