Wilson writes in unrhymed verse with a contemporary, level register. Her lines are compact and her word choices are everyday: "So die, my friend" (Book 21) or "he was far superior to you" are direct almost to the point of bluntness. Graves uses both rhyming verse and prose, and the choice varies by passage. His Book 1 opening rhymes in couplets ("Sing, Mountain Goddess, sing through me / That anger which most ruinously"), which gives the invocation a hymn-like formality, while his Book 21 passage drops into plain prose that runs longer than Wilson's equivalent lines. Graves's register shifts between the ornate and the conversational across the same book. Wilson holds a consistent pitch throughout; Graves does not. Wilson stays close to the literal sequence of Homer's statements while keeping the English natural to a modern reader. In the Book 9 passage, she gives "my chance of ever going home is lost, / but I shall have a name that lasts forever," which follows the Greek's paired fates without adding imagery. Graves, trained as a poet and mythographer, adds and reshapes freely. In the same passage, he frames Thetis's prophecy as a quoted poem with its own structure, expanding the Greek considerably. This gives Graves's version a literary texture that belongs partly to him. Wilson's version removes that texture and keeps the speech functional. Graves gains dramatic color; Wilson gains transparency to the Greek's structure.
Goddess, sing of the cataclysmic wrath
of great Achilles, son of Peleus,
which caused the Greeks immeasurable pain
and sent so many noble souls of heroes
to Hades, and made men the spoils of dogs,
a banquet for the birds, and so the plan
of Zeus unfolded—starting with the conflict
between great Agamemnon, lord of men,
and glorious Achilles.
Sing, Mountain Goddess, sing through me
That anger which most ruinously
Inflamed Achilles, Peleus' son,
And which, before the tale was done,
Had glutted Hell with champions—bold,
Stern spirits by the thousandfold;
Ravens and dogs their corpses ate
For thus did Zeus, who watched their fate,
See his resolve, first taken when
Proud Agamemnon, King of men,
An insult on Achilles cast,
Achieve accomplishment at last.