Essays on Iliad

Hiketeia is a ritual supplication in which an individual embraces the knees of another in solicitation of a favor or errand. The use of hiketeia in The Iliad establishes a nature of authority in characters of power, including Zeus and Achilles, by demonstrating and creating...

Destiny has been a constant theme for authors, poets, dramatists and playwrights since time immemorial. The idea of destiny has been incorporated in many novels and plays. Human beings have always been intrigued by the power of moira and its ability to dominate the course...

The respective endings of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey prove the different world-view that each epic takes. While both concern the era of the Trojan War, the characters in each seem to value two opposing outlooks. A close reading of the concluding passages regarding the heroes...

Homer’s Iliad tells the tale of how Achilleus, the all-powerful warrior of the Achaian army, turned the tides of the Trojan War following a dispute with Agamemnon, the king of Mycenae. While this story does not serve as a telling of the commencement or conclusion...

The Iliad, written by ancient Greek poet Homer, chronicles the battle and events during the final weeks of The Trojan War, an armed conflict between the Achaeans army and the defenders of Troy. It further recounts the story of the wrath of Achilles, the greatest...

The Iliad is an epic poem that glorifies the heroic ideals that war imposes on its men. War itself has a strange, deadly fascination for those who are involved. Although war is characterized as being dreadful and grim, it is also characterized as the way...

Humans are complex beings, each with individual traits, and an individual set of traits that they value in others. Despite this individuality, cultures are formed, in part, by the values they possess and nurture in their society as a whole. In the Homeric society, two...

Achilleus’ defilement of the body of Hektor is a grotesque and elaborate moment in the story of the Iliad, while all of the other bodies killed in the epic are either carried back by their comrades or left to the vultures. His treatment of the...

There was once a time that if a digital designer wanted to illustrate a story that was comparably epic to that of Homer’s “Iliad and the Odyssey”, to tell a tale of historic grandeur that feels as if it were translated from ancient Roman literature...

Andromache, one of the few female characters in the Iliad, is part of perhaps one of the tenderest sections of Iliad. Along with Helen, she is the only other mortal woman to have any substantial speaking lines in the entire epic. Unlike women in general...

A Contrast Between Beliefs Spirituality, religion, and the divine creation of humans have been central topics for many years. From the texts we have read, we see a major distinction between Western and Eastern society’s viewpoints. Western philosophy, as we have seen through our Ancient...

In Homer’s epic ballads The Iliad and The Odyssey, Achilles and Odysseus are the outstanding saints. Achilles battles Hector outside the dividers of Troy since Hector executed his closest companion, Patroclus. In the wake of battling in the Trojan War, Odysseus goes up against an...

What makes a character in a story different from any other character? While reading epic novels about the Anglo-Saxon culture and epic heroes, a character’s characterization and his development of characterization set him apart from the other characters in the novel. There are multiple ways...

Controversy infects our world like germs. It can be contained and controlled for a time but it will never truly be gone. In order to regulate the issues, they must first be addressed. However, when this occurs, more problems surface in its stead. A major...

The Iliad by Homer is an epic poem focused on the wrath of the character Achilles. This wrath guided Achilles to be a great warrior for the Greeks during the Trojan War, but this wrath also extended into his relationships with his fellow Greeks and...

Considering divinity, destiny, and the existence of free will is not a concept that is exclusive to Greek Literature; in fact, whenever there are predetermined, all-powerful entities that guide the actions of lesser beings, it is quite natural to question the agency of those being...

In his Iliad, Homer uses the character of Diomedes to personify his definition of effective leadership, often juxtaposing him with the unproductive and cowardly Agamemnon. Homer believes that the bravery to assert one’s opinions and the willingness to act independently, even against authority, constitutes a...

Throughout human history, people have been infatuated with the role of the “hero”. The concept that someone would be willing to risk life and limb for someone else never ceases to amaze. Just take a trip to Washington, D.C. The monuments and memorials to Lincoln,...

The Iliad by the Greek poet Homer is a patriarchal epic led by fearless men with a supporting cast of female characters. In Greek society, women are either a man’s prized possession or a man’s impediment and are the symbol of masculine pride. In the...