Beginning of Essay
An epic simile, also known as a Homeric simile, is defined as a simile where A is compared to B, then B is described in such detail that it becomes a digression. John Milton employed this device several times throughout Paradise Lost. The first two books of Par ....

Middle of Essay
.... the radically figurative style of his early poems -- notably, Lycidas and certain passages of Comus -- which critics like to call Shakespearean (MacCaffrey, 119). Both Homer (the originator of the extended/epic simile) and Milton found it necessary to stop short of the complex metaphors that served the dramatists as instruments for psychological exploration and symbolic statement. Homer’s similes provide a respite from the steady surge of heroic action, and broaden the scope of his poems. Into the simile could be introduced familiar scenes which would remind the listener of the world living on beyond the plains of Troy or Odysseus’ storm-beate ....