ILIAD

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ILIAD

• First written work of ancient Greek Literature
• Formative text for Western Literature as a
  whole
• Epic poem in dactylic hexameter
• Tells the tale of some 50 days in the Trojan war

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Homers Iliad for the Greeks

• Marked the beginning of unified Greek identity
• Source of knowledge of their past
• Illustrated ideals of manly virtue, arete
• Taught Greeks about proper religious attitudes
• Subject matter of ancient Greek art and tragedy

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SchoolsCopy of the Iliad found in Alexandria
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Hector and Andromache
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Priest Chryses begging for his daughter back
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Trojan War

• If it happened, it occurred probably ca. 1230
  B.C.E.
• The Greeks believed it happened and they believed
  that the Iliad told the tale of real warriors and
  events
• There was a civilization in Troy during the
  Bronze Age guarding the gates to the Dardanelles

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Troy

• Greek settlers of this region traced their
  lineage to the Trojans.

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Contingents of the Trojan war
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Iliad reflects Homers time

• Homer composed and wrote down a poem that evolved
  through oral performance over a number of
  centuries.
• Each performance modifieded the poem in responce
  to its audience
• Most scholars today agree that the Iliad
  represents a society that was familiar to its
  audience.

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Who was Homer?
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Debates

• Homer was the sole author of the Iliad and the
  Odyssey
• He lived sometime in the turn of the eighth
  century B.C.E.
• He was from Smyrna or Chios
• He was blind

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The Bard
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Oral Poetry

• Sung and performed to an audience with music
• Repetition of passages and use of formulaic
  phrases (epiphets) helped bards remember the next
  section
• Major events well-known to the audience so that
  the elegance of language and power of description
  were the poets tools, not suspense.

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Simile

• Descriptive tool
• Analogies to situations in nature and in the home
• Provides a break from battle narratives
• Increases emotive power of the text making us
  empathize with a situation closer to experience

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Basic Plot

• Agamemnon and Acchilles fight over girl
• Acchilles withdraws in anger
• The Greeks begin to lose
• Hector kills Patrocles, dear friend of
  Acchilles
• Acchilles is enraged and kills Hector
• Priam ransoms his son Hectors body
• Trojans bury Hector

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Wrath of Acchilles
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Themes

• Wrath of Acchilles and its consequences
• Plot focussed on the process of Acchilles both
  chooses to die young and finally recognizes human
  values
• Model for the Tragic Hero of Sophocles
• Incapable of controlling emotions
• Egoistic, larger than life, uncompromising
• Final recognition

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Themes continued

• Brutality of War
• Death inescapable
• Heroic virtue
• Trojans and Greeks share in it equally
• Sarpedon of Lycia
• Hector as a civilized family man

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