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The Iliad: Difference between revisions
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The ''Iliad'' (a song about Ilium, or Troy) along with its companion [[Epic Poetry|epic]] the <i>[[Odyssey]]</i> form the foundation of ancient Greek culture and address the extremes of human experience through war and peace. Both [[Epic Poetry|epic]] are primary, or oral, [[Epic Poetry|epic]] that draw on an enormous wealth of cultural stories in unified structures that we attribute to the poet [[Homer]], in eighth century B.C.E. The [[Epic Poetry|epic]] are written in an unsentimental style: the ''Iliad'' depicts the ambivalence of war in meticulously accurate details. Both the nightmare of war and its excitement find expression in the ''Iliad'', just as the <i>[[Odyssey]]</i>’s pages quest for a home, or a peace that seems hard-won after the devastation of war. | The ''Iliad'' (a song about Ilium, or Troy) along with its companion [[Epic Poetry|epic]] the <i>[[Odyssey]]</i> form the foundation of ancient Greek culture and address the extremes of human experience through war and peace. Both [[Epic Poetry|epic]] are primary, or oral, [[Epic Poetry|epic]] that draw on an enormous wealth of cultural stories in unified structures that we attribute to the poet [[Homer]], in eighth century B.C.E. The [[Epic Poetry|epic]] are written in an unsentimental style: the ''Iliad'' depicts the ambivalence of war in meticulously accurate details. Both the nightmare of war and its excitement find expression in the ''Iliad'', just as the <i>[[Odyssey]]</i>’s pages quest for a home, or a peace that seems hard-won after the devastation of war. | ||
==The Epic Theme== | ==Themes== | ||
===The Epic Theme=== | |||
As the narrator states first thing: the subject of the ''Iliad'' is the rage of [[Achilles]] and the consequences of that rage for both the Achaeans and the Trojans. War effects not only the men who fight the battles, but also the women and children whose lives are then shaped by its outcome. War represents the worst and, ironically, the best of humanity: ugly brutality and terrible beauty. We both pity with [[Hector]] and sympathize with [[Achilles]]; neither side of the war holds all of our sentiments. The final outcome of the war, then, becomes truly tragic: only one culture can continue while the other is destroyed or enslaved. | As the narrator states first thing: the subject of the ''Iliad'' is the rage of [[Achilles]] and the consequences of that rage for both the Achaeans and the Trojans. War effects not only the men who fight the battles, but also the women and children whose lives are then shaped by its outcome. War represents the worst and, ironically, the best of humanity: ugly brutality and terrible beauty. We both pity with [[Hector]] and sympathize with [[Achilles]]; neither side of the war holds all of our sentiments. The final outcome of the war, then, becomes truly tragic: only one culture can continue while the other is destroyed or enslaved. | ||
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Is war, then, a necessary component of human life? Just because it has been historically up until this point, are we to be like [[Achilles]] who could not hear reason through his bloody thoughts: “No truce / till one or the other falls and gluts with blood” (XXII.313-14)? When do we decide that war is better than order? | Is war, then, a necessary component of human life? Just because it has been historically up until this point, are we to be like [[Achilles]] who could not hear reason through his bloody thoughts: “No truce / till one or the other falls and gluts with blood” (XXII.313-14)? When do we decide that war is better than order? | ||
===Consequences of Rage=== | |||
== Summary == | == Summary == | ||