Iliad SparkNotes Literature Guide: Volume 35 (SparkNotes Literature Guide Series)

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Kleos is often given visible representation by the prizes won in battle. When Agamemnon takes Briseis from Achilles, he takes away a portion of the kleos he had earned.

The Iliad: Introduction. | SparkNotes

Shay, Jonathan. Achilles in Vietnam: Combat trauma and the undoing of character. Scribner, 1994. ISBN 978-0-684-81321-9 In antiquity, the Greeks applied the Iliad and the Odyssey as the bases of pedagogy. Literature was central to the educational-cultural function of the itinerant rhapsode, who composed consistent epic poems from memory and improvisation, and disseminated them, via song and chant, in his travels and at the Panathenaic Festival of athletics, music, poetics, and sacrifice, celebrating Athena's birthday. [33] Robert Browning's poem Development discusses his childhood introduction to the matter of the Iliad and his delight in the epic, as well as contemporary debates about its authorship. [ citation needed]It has been an easy, and a popular expedient, of late years, to deny the personal or real existence of men and things whose life and condition were too much for our belief. This system--which has often comforted the religious sceptic, and substituted the consolations of Strauss for those of the New Testament--has been of incalculable value to the historical theorists of the last and present centuries. To question the existence of Alexander the Great, would be a more excusable act, than to believe in that of Romulus. To deny a fact related in Herodotus, because it is inconsistent with a theory developed from an Assyrian inscription which no two scholars read in the same way, is more pardonable, than to believe in the good-natured old king whom the elegant pen of Florian has idealized--_Numa Pompilius._

The Iliad: Book I. | SparkNotes

The Iliad portrays the theme of heroism in a variety of different ways through different characters, mainly Achilles, Hector, Patroclus, etc. Though the traditional concept of heroism is often tied directly to the protagonist, who is meant to be written in a heroic light, the Iliad plays with this idea of heroism and does not make it explicitly clear who the true hero of the story is. The story of the Iliad follows the great Greek warrior Achilles, as well as his rage and the destruction it causes. Parallel to this, the story also follows the Trojan warrior Hector and his efforts to fight to protect his family and his people. It is generally assumed that, because he is the protagonist, Achilles is the hero of this story. Examining his actions throughout the Iliad and comparing them to those of other characters, however, some may come to the conclusion that Achilles is not really the hero, and perhaps even an antihero. It can also be argued that Hector is the true hero of the Iliad due to his inherently heroic qualities, such as a loyalty to his family as well as his strength and determination to defend his people, as well as the focus at the end of the story on burying Hector with honor. The true hero of the Iliad is never shown explicitly and is purposefully left up to interpretation by the author Homer, who aimed to show the complexity and flaws of both characters, regardless of who is considered the "true" hero. a b Frobish, T. S. (2003). "An Origin of a Theory: A Comparison of Ethos in the Homeric Iliad with That Found in Aristotle's Rhetoric". Rhetoric. 22 (1): 16–30. Dan Simmons' epic science fiction adaptation/tribute Ilium was released in 2003, receiving a Locus Award for best science fiction novel of 2003. [ citation needed] Frobish (2003, p.24) writes that the war "starts with his pride and immaturity, yet is finished with his skill and bravery on the battlefield." [21] Pride drives the plot of the Iliad. The Achaeans gather on the plain of Troy to wrest Helen from the Trojans. Though the majority of the Trojans would gladly return Helen to the Achaeans, they defer to the pride of their prince, Alexandros, also known as Paris. Within this frame, Homer's work begins. At the start of the Iliad, Agamemnon's pride sets forth a chain of events that leads him to take from Achilles, Briseis, the girl that he had originally given Achilles in return for his martial prowess. Due to this slight, Achilles refuses to fight and asks his mother, Thetis, to make sure that Zeus causes the Achaeans to suffer on the battlefield until Agamemnon comes to realize the harm he has done to Achilles. [21]

Homer (2023). The Iliad. Translated by Emily Wilson. New York, London: W. W. Norton. ISBN 9781324001805. Holland, Tom (17 October 2011). "The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller / Memorial by Alice Oswald. Surfing the rip tide of all things Homeric". New Statesman. London . Retrieved 1 June 2012. [ dead link] Sensible as I am of the difficulty of disproving a negative, and aware as I must be of the weighty grounds there are for opposing my belief, it still seems to me that the Homeric question is one that is reserved for a higher criticism than it has often obtained. We are not by nature intended to know all things; still less, to compass the powers by which the greatest blessings of life have been placed at our disposal. Were faith no virtue, then we might indeed wonder why God willed our ignorance on any matter. But we are too well taught the contrary lesson; and it seems as though our faith should be especially tried touching the men and the events which have wrought most influence upon the condition of humanity. And there is a kind of sacredness attached to the memory of the great and the good, which seems to bid us repulse the scepticism which would allegorize their existence into a pleasing apologue, and measure the giants of intellect by an homeopat a b Lefkowitz, Mary (2003). Greek Gods, Human Lives: What We Can Learn From Myths. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press. In the spring he sailed for Athens, and arrived at the island of Ios, now Ino, where he fell extremely ill, and died. It is said that his death arose from vexation, at not having been able to unravel an enigma proposed by some fishermen's children.(15)