The Iliad

Create a visual presentation for the class on one of the following topics:

Historical Background of Ancient Greece

The Trojan War - how/why did the war start?

The Life of Homer - when did he live and what did he do?

Hunter, Chris, Jade and Brandie

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The Epic Form - Epic Hero, In Medias Res, Homeric epithet

Epic Traditions: The Hero

Our earliest historical examples of epic heroes and their tasks are Homer's great Achilles and Odysseus, and the Greeks' war against the Trojans.   Achilles, known in theIliad by the epithets (nicknames) "the Man Breaker" or "the Great Runner," is heroic in the sense that he fights triumphantly against all his enemies and takes no thought for his own safety, defending rather the honor and duties that a warrior must insist are due to him.  He seeks fame, obeying only the immortal gods.  Even by the end of theIliad's hundreds of years of composition, however, revisionism seems to have found its way into the poem, repeatedly posing criticisms of the hero for his titanic rage which nearly destroys the Greek army when Achilles refuses to fight in his quarrel with Agamemnon.  This costs him the life of his best friend, Patroclos, who goes into battle to replace him and dies fighting Hector, who was Achilles' destined opponent.   Finally, even Zeus sends Hermes to tell Achilles that he has exceeded the bounds of propriety.  Of course, by that time, he has been dragging Hector's corpse behind his chariot around and around Troy's walls for three days to demonstrate how completely he has defeated the man who took Patroclos from him.

RP ClassBlog: The Iliad