Question: Are the "Odyssey" and "The Consul" fundamental to the modern Western canon?

full_context: Document 1: The Last Savage: The Last Savage is an opera in three acts by composer Gian Carlo Menotti. Menotti wrote his own libretto, originally in the Italian language ("L'ultimo selvaggio"). The opera was translated into French ("Le dernier sauvage") by Jean-Pierre Marty for the work's first (private) performance at the Opéra-Comique in Paris on 21 October 1963, followed the next day by the public premiere. George Mead translated the work into English for the opera's American premiere at the Metropolitan Opera the following year.
Document 2: Omeros: Omeros is an epic poem by Caribbean writer Derek Walcott, first published in 1990. The work is divided into seven "books" containing a total of sixty-four chapters. Many critics view "Omeros" as Walcott's "major achievement." Soon after its publication in 1990, it received praise from publications like "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times Book Review", the latter of which chose the book as one of its "Best Books of 1990" and called it "one of Mr. Walcott's finest poetic works." The book also won the WH Smith Literary Award in 1991. In 1992, Walcott was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the Nobel committee member who presented the award, Professor Kjell Espmark, singled out Walcott's most recent achievement at the time, "Omeros", recognizing the book as a "major work". Walcott painted the cover for the book, which depicts some of his main characters at sea together in a boat. In 2004, the critic Hilton Als of "The New Yorker" called the book "Walcott's masterpiece" and characterized the poem as "the perfect marriage of Walcott’s classicism and his nativism".
Document 3: The Consul: The Consul is an opera in three acts with music and libretto by Gian Carlo Menotti, his first full-length opera.
Document 4: Aeneid: The Aeneid ( ; Latin: "Aeneis" ] ) is a Latin epic poem, written by Virgil between 29 and 19 BC, that tells the legendary story of Aeneas, a Trojan who travelled to Italy, where he became the ancestor of the Romans. It comprises 9,896 lines in dactylic hexameter. The first six of the poem's twelve books tell the story of Aeneas's wanderings from Troy to Italy, and the poem's second half tells of the Trojans' ultimately victorious war upon the Latins, under whose name Aeneas and his Trojan followers are destined to be subsumed.
Document 5: Trojan War: In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans (Greeks) after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, king of Sparta. The war is one of the most important events in Greek mythology and has been narrated through many works of Greek literature, most notably through Homer's "Iliad". The "Iliad" relates four days in the tenth year of the decade-long siege of Troy; the "Odyssey" describes the journey home of Odysseus, one of the war's heroes. Other parts of the war are described in a cycle of epic poems, which have survived through fragments. Episodes from the war provided material for Greek tragedy and other works of Greek literature, and for Roman poets including Virgil and Ovid.
Document 6: Odyssey: The Odyssey ( ; Greek: Ὀδύσσεια "Odýsseia", ] in Classical Attic) is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the "Iliad", the other work ascribed to Homer. The "Odyssey" is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second-oldest extant work of Western literature; the "Iliad" is the oldest. Scholars believe the "Odyssey" was composed near the end of the 8th century BC, somewhere in Ionia, the Greek coastal region of Anatolia.
Document 7: Telegony: The Telegony (Greek: Τηλεγόνεια , "Tēlegoneia"; Latin: "Telegonia" ) is a lost ancient Greek epic poem about Telegonus, son of Odysseus by Circe. His name ("born far away") is indicative of his birth on Aeaea, far from Odysseus' home of Ithaca. It was part of the Epic Cycle of poems that recounted the myths of the Trojan War as well as the events that led up to and followed it. The story of the "Telegony" comes chronologically after that of the "Odyssey" and is the final episode in the Epic Cycle. The poem was sometimes attributed in Antiquity to Cinaethon of Sparta, but in one source it is said to have been stolen from Musaeus by Eugamon or Eugammon of Cyrene (see Cyclic poets). The poem comprised two books of verse in dactylic hexameter.
Document 8: Labyrinth (opera): Labyrinth is an opera in one act by composer Gian Carlo Menotti. The work was commissioned for television by the NBC Opera Theatre and uses an English language libretto by the composer. Unlike Menotti's previous television operas, such as "Amahl and the Night Visitors", this opera was written with no intention of being moved to live stage performance later. Menotti intended for this work to utilize the special effects unique to television which could not be recreated in live theatre. As a result, NBC's television production of the opera is the only performance the work has received. At its premiere in March 1963 the opera was mainly criticized by the press for its trite use of allegory and music which rejected the avante garde in favour of romanticism. Critic Harold C. Schonberg stated in his review in "The New York Times" that, "Menotti falls back on the procedures he has always used: the scraps of canonic imitation, the stretches of parlando, the Puccini like melodies, the banal waltz themes... [It] ended up an allegory that had all the dimension of a Mobius strip: an example of slick television and cinema of the 1960s wedded pretty much to music of the 1890s... On the whole "Labyrinth" is one of the thinnest musical concoctions Menotti has ever put together.
Document 9: The Medium: The Medium is a short (one-hour-long) two-act dramatic opera with words and music by Gian Carlo Menotti. Commissioned by Columbia University, its first performance was there on 8 May 1946. The opera's first professional production was presented on a double bill with Menotti's "The Telephone" at the Heckscher Theater, New York City, February 18–20, 1947 by the Ballet Society. The Broadway production took place on May 1, 1947, at the Ethel Barrymore Theater with the same cast.
Document 10: The Hero (opera): The Hero is a two-act opera by Italian-American composer Gian Carlo Menotti. Commissioned by the Opera Company of Philadelphia, the work premiered at the Philadelphia Academy of Music on June 1, 1976. At this point of his career, Menotti's style of composition, which rejected the avant-garde, was out of favor with the classical music world. "Time" stated in its review of the opera, "Most of Menotti's music is passable Puccini: melodic, easy to take—and totally beside the point in 1976."
Document 11: Gian Carlo Menotti: Gian Carlo Menotti (] ; July 7, 1911 – February 1, 2007) was an Italian-American composer and librettist. Although he often referred to himself as an American composer, he kept his Italian citizenship. He wrote the classic Christmas opera "Amahl and the Night Visitors", along with over two dozen other operas intended to appeal to popular taste.
Document 12: Apollonius of Rhodes: Apollonius of Rhodes (Ancient Greek: Ἀπολλώνιος Ῥόδιος "Apollṓnios Rhódios"; Latin: "Apollonius Rhodius" ; fl. first half of 3rd century BCE), was an ancient Greek author, best known for the "Argonautica", an epic poem about Jason and the Argonauts and their quest for the Golden Fleece. The poem is one of the few extant examples of the epic genre and it was both innovative and influential, providing Ptolemaic Egypt with a "cultural mnemonic" or national "archive of images", and offering the Latin poets Virgil and Gaius Valerius Flaccus a model for their own epics. His other poems, which survive only in small fragments, concerned the beginnings or foundations of cities, such as Alexandria and Cnidusplaces of interest to the Ptolemies, whom he served as a scholar and librarian at the Library of Alexandria. A literary dispute with Callimachus, another Alexandrian librarian/poet, is a topic much discussed by modern scholars since it is thought to give some insight into their poetry, although there is very little evidence that there ever was such a dispute between the two men. In fact almost nothing at all is known about Apollonius and even his connection with Rhodes is a matter for speculation. Once considered a mere imitator of Homer, and therefore a failure as a poet, his reputation has been enhanced by recent studies, with an emphasis on the special characteristics of Hellenistic poets as scholarly heirs of a long literary tradition writing at a unique time in history.
Document 13: The Telephone: The Telephone, or L'Amour à trois is an English-language comic opera in one act by Gian Carlo Menotti, both words and music. It was written for production by the Ballet Society and was first presented on a double bill with Menotti's "The Medium" at the Heckscher Theater, New York City, February 18–20, 1947. The Broadway production took place on May 1, 1947, at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Metropolitan Opera presented it once, on July 31, 1965.
Document 14: Amelia Goes to the Ball: Amelia al ballo ("Amelia Goes to the Ball") is a one-act "opera buffa" by Gian Carlo Menotti, who set his own Italian libretto. Composed during 1936 when Menotti was in his mid-twenties, it was the composer's first mature opera and first critical success. The opera recounts a series of farcical events as a young Italian socialite overcomes obstacles to her attendance at the first ball of the season.
Document 15: Phemius: In Homer's epic poem the Odyssey, Phemius (Greek: Φήμιος, "Phēmios" ) is an Ithacan poet who performs narrative songs in the house of the absent Odysseus. His audience is made up largely of the suitors (Proci), who live in the house while attempting to persuade Penelope to marry one of them. In Book 1 of the poem, Phemius performs at their request a version of the theme "The Return from Troy" (a theme that actually existed as a written poem, probably at a slightly later date). The performance is heard by Penelope. The story distresses her, since it is a reminder that her own husband has still not returned, and she emerges from her room to ask Phemius to choose a less painful theme. The proposal is overruled by her son Telemachus, because he thinks that a singer shouldn't be forbidden to sing what his heart tells him to sing, and because it is Telemachus' right as householder to decide, not his mother's.
ground_truth: yes