The grand and personal themes of Homers epic poem the lliad-the destru

IMHO (E) for the highlighted error in Verb Tense uses....
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Hi,
To simplify the sentence, ignore the prepositional phrase “of Homers epic poem the lliad-the destruction of war, the bonds of friendship, the longing for the comforts of home”. Sentence simplifies to:

The grand and personal themes had been as evocative to the ancient Greeks as it IS to our own society.

Sentence looks fine except the tense usage “had been” and verb usage “is”.
Since Ancient Greek is a thing in past and our society is in present, correct usage must be simple past and simple present respectively.
Second, grand and personal themes is the subject of the sentence and it is plural. Hence, plural verb must be used.
E correct these issues and is the correct answer choice.

Posted from my mobile device
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Hi, I feel decoding the intended meaning of the sentence helps in efficiently solving the question.
The sentence is trying to say that some ABC guy's epic poem had some themes (plural), these themes elicited feelings in past as well as in present.
Therefore, there has to be clear reference to feelings elicited earlier, thus options B,C & D are out. A & C are also out due to S-V disagreement (IT, remember plural Themes).
Option E stays and clearly demarcates the response to the poem in the past and in the present.
Hope it helps.

A- no need for past perfect unless simple past is used as a reference that we are talking about past.
B- use of present tense is wrong - ancient Greeks refers obviously to past.
C- evokes- verb error, we need a plural verb.
D- the whole construction is weird. No need for evoking.
E- correct!