Free Essays on Iliad to Get Inspired & Learn by Example

The Iliad (By Homer)

The great name of Homer is primarily connected with the birth of the author's poetry. Exactly Homer is the first European poet. For thirty centuries, Homer’s poems admired a lot of people. Readers are experiencing delight, poets and critics study the features of the great poet. However, the creative legacy of Homer is not so great. It's just two poems: the ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey,’ and a little of hymns. We can not say that the poem the ‘Iliad’ superiors ‘Odyssey,’ but ‘The Ilfiad’ is considered the number one poem in the world.
The poem ‘Iliad’ was created on Continue reading...

The Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer are two of the world masterpieces that have survived the times. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, much is made of justice as a recurring theme. In both stories, justice is divine as there are no courts to determine what are just and what is not. In the Iliad, during wartime, justice is seen as being corrupt or irrational while during peacetime, it is seen as a rational and acceptable. It is contradictory because, the lives of the characters in the epic are seen as divine and every individual is seen as Continue reading...

The epic of Gilgamesh dates back to the eighteenth century from Mesopotamia and is considered to be a great work of literature. It is a story of Gilgamesh, the king of Uruk and Enkidu his friend. When Enkidu dies, the king mourns the death of his friend. Most of the story in this epic is narrated from the point of view of Gilgamesh. In the early parts of this story Gilgamesh is portrayed as an ironical person who is rash and does not heed death. However, towards the end of the story, after seeing the travails of his dear Continue reading...

One of the prevalent elements in Homer’s “The Iliad” is the notion of honor. This virtue seems to be greatly emphasized in the Homeric culture. Homer depicts the Greeks as individuals whose main aim in life was to maintain a high reputation and not be disgraced. In fact, throughout “The Iliad”, a majority of the characters are at one time another embroiled in a struggle to either gain honor or to avoid public shame. Some of the characters go to great lengths to gain honor and others go to great lengths to avoid public shame and for those Continue reading...

Women have lived in patriarchal societies for a large part of human history. Studying literature and scriptures of the antiquity can shed light on the manner in which those societies were patriarchal and oppressive of women. Common elements of the two were that women were restricted to the domestic sphere of the civilization and were never involved in any kind of decision making. Beyond this similarity there exist many differences in the two narratives that we shall consider in this paper – The Iliad and the Hebrew Bible (or the Old Testament). The Iliad is a tragedy at large while Continue reading...

Human vs. Divine

Myths and divinity have always worked as enigma in the psyche of the people of the world. The enigma and the aura encompassing mythology have transcended the distinctions of culture, community and age. Myths are cultural and social markers of a community or religion. The world has always found the Greek and Roman mythology intriguing to the utmost degree. The content of the mythology of these civilizations have attained to limelight in research work for a long time owing to the intricacies, banalities, and superhuman transcendence. A close introspection into the nature of the mythological characters of Roman and Continue reading...

The Ancient Greeks worshiped many gods. Of the twelve gods associated with Mount Olympus, they called theme he Olympian gods. Hera was one of these gods, and she was a female goddess with all the attributes of woman, mother, jealous wife, and protectress of Greece. In the pattern of Greek culture and history, the gods the Greeks worshiped were divine human-like figures of humanity. In other words, the Greeks made their gods and goddesses fully human but filled with heavenly power. Hera is no different in this respect. In this paper, the attributes and contradictions of Hera will be Continue reading...

For the film review, the movie that has been chosen is Troy [2004]. Troy is one of the classics of Hollywood; the film has also received 11 awards and several international awards on performances featured in it. It was the reason due to which I preferred to choose this epic war film. Moreover, my interest towards army and war-related historic films, and the cast of the film was a reason to choose this film for review.
Anciently, Troy is the name of a city from the Bronze Age, which was once a part of today’s Turkey. It has Continue reading...

Introduction

In Homer’s “The Illiad”, three pivotal characters, Sarpedon, Hektor and Patrokolos meet an untimely death at the battle front. The desire for glory and wealth is what drives the characters to the battlefield and in the end, it is what leads the characters to their deaths. The factors responsible for the deaths of Hektor and Sarpedon are easily identifiable but when it comes to Patroclus, clearly pointing out who or what is responsible for his death becomes hard. However, all factors considered, it is reasonably safe to conclude that Patroclus is responsible for his own death mainly because Continue reading...

Main Idea:

The book Iliad by Homer glorifies the war and the life of the warriors but the depiction of everyday life which appears on the shields seems to have the same importance or even more, being seen as equally noble, suggesting that every actions in life has its own importance.

Supporting point:

Power-symbolic, implicit and explicit is very powerful in this story. The Iliad by Homer treats a lot of themes from human experience being one of the most compressed narrative stories. One of the elements which represent power as a symbol is the shield of Achilles which is even a single Continue reading...