The Illad

A detailed Summary of The Illad

"The Iliad", an epic tale told by the famous Greek author Homer, is focused primarily on the Trojan War between the Greeks, or Argives, and the Trojans. This war was filled with bloody battles and a massive loss of life. Homer tells stories about a duration of time during this fighting, and not the entire war. He uses his story-telling abilities to focus the audience on the garish and sometimes mundane drudgery of war. Due to his removal from the actual time of these battles, his stories may be embellished or not completely accurate descriptions of what did or did not happen. Overall, however, the Iliad is believed to be mostly true.

Homer was born, most likely, in the 8th Century B.C. He is widely believed to be the best and most popular of the Ionian poets. His birthplace is not known beyond a doubt. Some have even said that he may have been blind. This idea has its share of critics though, since Homer details specific landscape scenes all throughout his works, and most of his writing is focused on the vision of the scene in which he describes.

Homer relies heavily on descriptions to get his points across to the audience. In Homer's time, stories were told orally. Therefore, as a good writer, he attempted to wr

Along with the fighting and nature, Homer's similes also show us the societal norms in ancient Greek culture when it comes to differences between the sexes. Men were described in grand God-like terms, while women were given praise for being nurturing and caring. As a man was supposed to be rather stoic, so a woman was supposed to show emotion. Examples of this are:

Finally, another important reference-type used in Homer's similes in The Iliad deal with occupations and activities in ancient Greece's day-to-day life. Many similes have some occupation or action in them, which the Greeks performed. For example: "...the ranks pulled closer, tight as a mason packs a good stone wall..." (p. 419, 250-251) This excerpt shows that the ancient Greeks had masons, or men to do the building of structures. Homer also makes references to other known ancient occupations, such as farmers and priests. Nurses and poets are also talked about in The Iliad. If analyzed, it can be seen that once again in ancient Greek culture, women are expected to be the nurturers and men the laborers. Women were most often nurses, housewives, maids, or even teachers. Men were usually masons, farmers, professional warriors, or craftsmen of some sort.

Along with many similes being about nature's animals, many others involve nature's weather. Dust storms, hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning, thunder, and others are all used to describe some aspect of the fighting. Once again, these references show the ferocity with which the armies battled. For example: "But now, wild as a black cyclone twisting out of a cloudbank, building up from the day's heat, blasts and towers- so brazen Ares looked to Tydeus' son Diomedes." (p.192, 997-1000) and, "As gale-winds swirl and shatter under the shrilling gusts on days when drifts of dust lie piled thick on the roads and winds whip up the dirt in a dense whirling cloud- so the battle broke..." (p. 352, 388-391)

he lamb to be a submissive, a victim of the wolves' aggression. This simile shows how the fighting was going at that time for the two sides. The Achaeans were the aggressive wolves and the Trojans were the victimized lambs. These animal-focused similes also show the ferocity with which the two sides battled when fighting each other. Many of Homer's

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Approximate Word count = 1530
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

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