The Hobbit or The Odyssey

I recently re-read The Hobbit.  The first time I read it (in fall 2012), I hadn't read The Odyssey.  But now that I'm somewhat familiar with The Odyssey after reading it in spring 2013, I found a lot of elements in The Hobbit that resemble The Odyssey.  (It's been over a year since I last read The Odyssey, so I might be a bit vague in describing some of these connections.)

There's the obvious connection between Bilbo's journey and Odysseus' (although the same could be said for any number of adventure stories).  After all, the subtitle to The Hobbit is There and Back Again.  So, in the same way that Odysseus travels from Ithaca to the Trojan War and the back again, Bilbo travels from Bag End to the Lonely Mountain and then back again.  However, Thorin also bears some resemblance to Odysseus in that he's a king trying to regain his former position.  Additionally, both Thorin and Odysseus are trying to regain their treasure - Thorin's treasure in the actual definition, and Odysseus' more figuratively, as he's trying to get back to his wife Penelope.

Thorin is also cast in the rôle of Odysseus when he stabs one of the trolls in the eye in Chapter II.  "He caught up a big branch all on fire at one end; and Bert got that end in his eye before he could step aside."  In The Odyssey, Odysseus (with the help of his men) stabs Polyphemus in the eye with a flaming stick.

There's also a slight connection between the Lotus Eaters and the river that Bombur falls into in Chapter VIII.  After falling in, he "slept on with a smile on his fat face, as if he no longer cared for all the trouble that vexed them."  Later, in Chapter XVI, it's noted that "ever since the adventure in the forest he was always trying to recapture the beautiful dreams he had."  In The Odyssey, those who ate the lotus no longer cared about returning home.  It's not exactly the same in The Hobbit, but there is a certain similarity.

It's not surprising that Tolkien used various elements from The Odyssey in writing The Hobbit because not only was he trying to write an adventure but he was also interested in those old adventures and myths (I also have his The Legend of Sigurd & Gudrún, which is based on mythology).  Naturally, parts of them would make their way into his own writing.