Week 3 Reading Notes: Homer's Iliad, Part A

 Reading notes adapted from Homer's Iliad, by Alfred J. Church

Iliad: How the War with Troy Began

  • The story starts with traditional "once upon a time, there once ..." that generally begins with most folktales
  • Revolves around royalty and their interconnected relations
    • Usually involves some form of love or arranged marriage
  • All characters described as some form of title or relationship to another form of royalty
    • Ex: Nestor, the oldest man in the world
    • Ex: Diomed, son of Tydeus
  • Interference with the gods as a way to give one of the sides an advantage
    • Here, the priest of Apollo prayed to Apollo, and the god went and destroyed Agamemnon's horses, mules, and the rest of the army
  • An instance of a clear moral dilemma between Agamemnon and the rest of his chiefs
    • Human fault in Agamemnon's greed and desire to gain
    • Also, another divine intervention when Achilles was about to pull out his sword to spar with Agamemnon, but the goddess Athena stopped him and convinced him to not do it and just wait for the conclusion to be rewarded for his good intentions
  • Has to include an evil deed by someone in a position of power, which can be shown here by Agamemnon.
  • The interconnectedness between mortals and the gods.
    • Here, Achilles is the son of Thetis, the goddess of the sea. Thetis wishes to grant honor for her son but would need Zeus' help to invoke tragedy against the Trojans so that they will realize that the battle cannot be won without Achilles
    • In turn, this caused conflict between Zeus and Hera, his wife, for she thought that Thetis was someone who cannot be trusted
  • A clever way to deceive Agamemnon
    • In this case, Zeus sent a "Dream" to make him believe that he can take over Troy without the help of Achilles, which was false
    • I think that insinuation of something clever like this would be very enjoyable for a plot. Zeus could've just installed the Dream to tell Agamemnon to take back Achilles, but he didn't.
(Thetis Pleading to Zeus. Source: Wikimedia)

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