Aphrodite spelled Paris, so that he would be irresistible to Helena, who instantly fell in love with him and send Menelaus on a trip to a different island. In the night Paris took Helena away to the walled city of Troy and when Menelaus heard of his wife's kidnapping, he called all of the kings of Greece to help attack Troy.
Because Paris angered Hera and Athena with not giving the apple to them, they fight on the side of the Greeks, giving them the divine protection and the power of warfare, whilst having Achilles on their side. Was the Trojan War Real? Troy can be geographically located - but if the Trojan War ever occurred is questionable Troy is set in western Anatolia around the 12th or 13th century BC but there has been much debate over historical evidence of the Trojan War.
Findings of the German archeologist Heinrich Schliemann in the late 19th in Turkey suggest that the city of Troy did exist but that a ten-year conflict may not have actually occurred. There is also contention over whether the ruins in Turkey represent the same Troy as the one Homer described. For most ancient Greeks the Trojan War was more than a myth, but an epoch-defining moment in their past, a real event.
The Romans even went so far as to present themselves as the descendants of the surviving Trojans. The Greeks found in the legacy of the Trojan War an explanation for the bloody and inferior world in which they lived. There were no gods influencing the course of action on the battlefields, but men who found themselves overwhelmed in a bloody fray could well have imagined there were, as the tide turned against them.
Homer captured timeless truths in even the most fantastical moments of the poem. Achilles and Odysseus had inhabited an age of heroes. Their age had now died, leaving behind it all the bloodthirstiness, but none of the heroism or martial excellence, of the Trojan War. Both the Iliad and the Odyssey, are one of the first works of ancient Greek literature, traditionally attributed to Homer, even though the existence of a single author and the reality of events is heavily debated.
Homer invented the Greek gods we are familiar with. I also noticed that J. Rowling was majorly influenced by Homer and therefore the entire Harry Potter universe.
I finally understand references spread over the centuries, whether it is Goethe, James Joyce, Atwood and countless others. I very much want to advice you to start with the Iliad, as it comes first in the timeline, introduces the character of Odysseys and provides the context needed to get the most out of it. Meredith Holley. Author 2 books 2, followers. At my college graduation, the speaker was a gruff professor. I liked this professor in general, and his graduation speech was a grand: warm congratulations on a crisp early-summer day.
He decided to inform us, however, that anyone who had not read The Iliad and The Odyssey should not be graduating from college. I was one of those lucky lucky?
I decided to rectify the situation as soon as possible, and I spent an indefinite number of hours in the next few, sunny weeks laying in a hammock on my porch, the boy I loved commiserating with me about this wonderful book. It is a warm, sharp memory.
That was mumble mumble years ago, and this summer, I thought that since I just graduated again, I would read it again. It was a good choice. Warm, summer days in the hammock with limb-chopping, flashing helms, and mountain goats rushing down the hillside.
Something about that quote, about this book, and about the way this book reminds me of that quote, makes my blood beat close to my skin. That is how this book feels to me. The Iliad is the almost-death of Achilles, the almost-destruction of Troy, and reading it is an almost-panic-attack, an almost-sob. It is the absent top step in a flight of stairs. But, oh man, that flight of stairs. How do you even make that? Mostly the women fleshlights.
Oh, wait. As you probably know, the war initially started because Paris, a Trojan, stole Helen, who was the iPhone 5 of fleshlights, from Menelaus, an Argive.
The Argives are at their ships; the Trojans are in Ilium, behind the city walls. The story opens with Agamemnon, the king of the Argives, having stolen a fancy new fleshlight from Achilles, who is a child of a water nymph. Achilles refuses to continue fighting if Agamemnon is going to take his fleshlight. Then, Achilles has this beautiful, beautiful moment where he questions the very nature of fighting over fleshlights.
We are all pawns in the petty squabbles of the gods. The gods are easily my favorite parts of this story, though it is not really about them in a certain way.
It is not really about them in the way that any discussion of a god is not really about the god. On the one hand, it is about how our lives are just pawns in this squabbling, incestuous, eternal Thanksgiving dinner in the sky.
On the other hand, it is still about the pawns. The gods are compelling on their own, but my heart tries to escape my chest not because of their story, but because, yes, humans do live and die by some kind of petty lottery run by a rapist married to his sister. And maybe there is someone bold and wonderful in the sky, like the grey-eyed Athena, but we still live and die by the thunder of a maniacal drunk uncle. Yes, that seems true. So, in the midst of the chopping of limbs, the shatteringly beautiful similes, death after death, and the machinations of the dysfunctional immortal family, this story is about the betrayal of Menelaus and the death of Achilles.
The thing that is absolutely, hands-down the most insane about this story to me is that those two events are deeply vivid in my mind in connection to this book, but neither of them actually happens here. How is that possible?! My blood does that thing where it tries to get out of my skin just from thinking about that. I can picture Achilles's death so vividly, picture lying in that hammock and reading it after I graduated from college, but that never happened.
Homer just planted the seeds of his death in my brain, and they grew from my constant pondering over them. What causes violence? We say that something eternal, God or the gods, cause violence because they control our fate, they appear to us as birds and as wisdom and lead us on our night-blind path of life, but they lead us erratically: drunk, hysterical drivers and us with no seat belt, so we grasp for mere survival.
Homer describes those motivations for violence so beautifully. But, ultimately I think that is all bullshit, and I think the bullshitness of it is there in this story, too.
It is there in Achilles challenging Agamemnon. It is there in Achilles mourning Patroclus. What a shame. Anyway, though, people are not violent because we were betrayed or because of supernatural trickery. Our violence is ours; it is our choice and our responsibility. Life is barbarous and cruel around us, but that is its nature, and we can only shape ourselves through and around it.
When we expect life to be gentle and obedient, we are usually doing nothing more than justifying our own cruelty. It is blood-poundingly, eye-achingly told. As my professor said, everyone should read this, and if you can read it in the sun, lying in a hammock after your graduation, all the better. Riku Sayuj. There might be some truth to this, a universal truth.
Significantly however, this is not how the ancients understood it. They understood war as the catastrophe that it is. Precisely because of this the Blake exclamation might have been more valid than it had a right to be. This is why there is a need to revisit the original tragic purpose of the Epic - most commentators would say that as above this original purpose was against ALL wars.
But there is much significance to the fact that the epic celebrates the doomed fight of two extinct peoples. The Iliad starts on the eve of war and ends on the eve of war. In that clash of the Titans, the epic defines itself and creates a lasting prophecy.
In Medias Res The Iliad opens in medias res , as it were, as if the epic-recitation was already on its way and we, the audience, have just joined. The art of Iliad is then the art of the entrance, the players enter from an ongoing world which is fully alive in the myths that surround the epic and the audience. The poem describes neither the origins nor the end of the war. After the initial skirmish with Agamemnon and the withdrawal that forms the curtain-raiser, Achilles plays no part in the events described in Books 2 through 8; he sits by his ships on the shore, playing his harp, having his fun, waiting for the promised end.
The scene where Hector meets Andromache and his infant son is one of the most poignant scenes of the epic and heightened by Homer for maximum dramatic tension.
On the other hand, Achilles is almost non-human, close to a god. Zeus and the Gods know the future, they know how things are going to unfold. Among the mortals fighting it out in the plains of Ilium, only Achilles shares this knowledge, and this fore-knowledge is what allows him in the guise of rage to stay away from battle, even at the cost of eternal honor. Fore-knowledge is what makes Achilles who is the most impetuous man alive wiser than everyone else.
Hector on the other hand takes heed of no omens, or signs, nor consults any astrologer. He is the rational man. He is the ordinary man.
Roused to defense. But everything Hector believes is false just as everything Achilles knows is true - for all his prowess, Hector is as ordinary a soldier as anyone else except Achilles , privy to no prophecies, blind to his own fate.
That he can save Troy all by himself. But, it also charts the metamorphosis of Achilles from a man who abhors a war that holds no meaning for him to a man who fights for its own sake. On the other side, it also charts how the civilized Hector, the loving family man and dutiful patriot Hector becomes a savage, driven by the madness of war. Before that, an interlude. That is when Achilles delivers his famous anti-war speech.
This speech of Achilles can be seen as a repudiation of the heroic ideal itself, of kleos - a realization that the life and death dedicated to glory is a game not worth the candle.
The reply is a long, passionate outburst; he pours out all the resentment stored up so long in his heart. He rejects out of hand this embassy and any other that may be sent; he wants to hear no more speeches. Not for Agamemnon nor for the Achaeans either will he fight again. He is going home, with all his men and ships. But though it might seem as preordained, it is useful to question it closely.
The confrontation is crucial and deserves very close scrutiny. We must ask ourselves - What brings on this confrontation? On first glance, it was fate, but if looked at again, we can see that Homer leaves plenty of room for free-will and human agency - Hector had a choice. But not Achilles - instead, Achilles' choice was exercised by Patroclus. This calls for a significant re-look at the central conflict of the epic: it might not be Hector Vs Achilles!
In exchange for this favour, she makes Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, fall in love with him. Breaking the rules of hospitality, Paris takes her to Troy, his own kingdom. Outraged, Menelaus seeks the help of his elder brother Agamemnon, and together they raise an army to punish the Trojans.
For nine long years the Greeks lay siege to the fort of Troy without success and this is where Homer starts his story in medias res. The semi-divine warrior is infuriated and decides to withdraw from the battle. But when Hector kills his friend and companion, Patroclus, Achilles returns to the battlefield, killing Hector and dragging his body around the city walls. Despite knowing that if he kills Hector, his death is inevitable, he chooses friendship and revenge over life.
This incident exposes rage as shortsighted and self-destructive. Greeks were always wary of irrational passion. When Zeno in the third century BC Athens, therefore, founded the philosophical school of Stoicism, urging people to maintain calmness in the face of adversity and prosperity, he became widely popular. Stoicism is strikingly similar to the Indian concept of sthitapragya , a state of mind in which an individual is not affected by either sorrow or happiness.
But Priam is anything but stoic. The old man reminds the Greek hero of his father. Priam weeps for his deceased son Hector whereas Achilles sheds tears for his father.
This powerful scene inspired the Australian writer David Malouf to write a novel titled Ransom The story remains incomplete and ends with a truce to arrange funeral rites for Hector. Other sources tell us about the Trojan horse, sack of Troy and killing of Achilles by Paris. Rather, he shows that Greeks and Trojans speak the same language, worship the same gods, long for glory and most importantly, want the war to end so that they can return to their families.
This larger ethical framework is the guiding principle behind the poem. No one knows who Homer was. Last Updated: October 20, References. This article was co-authored by wikiHow Staff. Our trained team of editors and researchers validate articles for accuracy and comprehensiveness.
This article has been viewed 9, times. Learn more The Iliad by Homer is considered to be a masterpiece of Western literature. The story was composed around B. It describes the events of the Trojan War from around B. Many people are intimidated by the length of the Iliad and its status as ancient literature. However, the Iliad is much more accessible to modern readers than you might think and there are several helpful strategies that you can try if you want to read it.
Check with your instructor to find out if there are specific books that want you to focus on or if they expect you to read the whole thing. Tip : Writing summaries may also be useful if you will be tested on the text at a later point. Log in Social login does not work in incognito and private browsers. Please log in with your username or email to continue. No account yet? Create an account. Edit this Article. We use cookies to make wikiHow great.
By using our site, you agree to our cookie policy. Cookie Settings. Learn why people trust wikiHow. Download Article Explore this Article methods.
Related Articles. Method 1. All rights reserved. This image may not be used by other entities without the express written consent of wikiHow, Inc. Since the Iliad has been translated into modern English, people often find it surprisingly easy to read. Look for a translation that includes footnotes, a glossary, and other helpful features that may help to make the reading process even easier for you.
Familiarize yourself with the story of Helen and Paris. According to legend, Helen was the wife of Menelaus who fell in love with Paris and ran off with him, and this is what caused the Trojan War. This story occurs before the events of the Iliad.
0コメント