The allusion to Hephaestus in line 10 contrasts Odysseus' and Hephaestus' appearances. Hephaestus has a disfigured face and body. Odysseus, on the other hand, has impressive looks. He has a good build and has high endurance. Unfortunately, the gods don't like him.
I think perhaps that the influence the bloody American civil war had on subsequent literature would probably be relative to the hard realities of the battlefield and life in the army camps as experienced by the ordinary e a soldiers on both sides of the conflict as opposed to the lofty ideal of opposing slavery could be a reason why realism returned to American literature.
