Humanism: Humanists view texts as "great books" which contain universal truths about the inherent nature of human beings. Works of art are sources of knowledge. Artists, like physicists, are discovers and teachers of truths. It's just that artists teach us about human beings instead of DNA and electrons.
When we read the Odyssey as a great book, we notice what Homer got right about human nature, and likewise what he failed to understand.

Existential thinking: Existential thinkers cannot think of texts as great books, because they don't believe that there are universal truths about human beings. Instead, they think of books like the Odyssey as "great works." Something is a great work insofar as it brings together tendencies in a culture's practices so that people in that culture see these tendencies as manifesting a particular style, i.e. a particular understanding of being.
When we read the Odyssey as a great work, we try to look for and articulate the cultural practices that are operative in the work and the understanding(s) of being those practices manifest.

Prof. Hubert Dreyfus. Philosophy 6. UC Berkeley.