Everyone knows the Iliad. And everyone talks about it. But here, I only want to discuss one forgotten element of it. An element ESSENTIAL to constructing a valid modern worldview - for EACH of us.I always avoided applying this element to my daily life. But I was wrong - so wrong.Rei Pasa! Those two words sum it all up.They were written by a Greek gentleman who was roughly the contemporary of Homer - Heraclitus, the ancient pre-Socratic philosopher.Rei pasa - everything changes. Inevitably.As Her...

Ἰλιάς = The Iliad, Homer The Iliad is an ancient Greek epic poem in dactylic hexameter, traditionally attributed to Homer. Set during the Trojan War, the ten-year siege of the city of Troy (Ilium) by a coalition of Greek states, it tells of the battles and events during the weeks of a quarrel between King Agamemnon and the warrior Achilles.Characters: Ajax, Odysseus, Helen of Troy, Menelaus, Paris, Hector, Achilles, Agamemnon, Aeneas, Sarpedon, Priam, Cassandra, Patroclus, Diomedes, Ajax Oileus,...

This is a must read for every italian boys and girls at school ( many years ago the ministry of education put it with Dante, and Manzoni as a fixed programm to study for all the young italians); we begin to study "Iliade" from middle then up to High school ...and then at College if you choose humanistic studies...i will never forget my teacher at "Liceo Classico" kind of "Classical studies high school" that gifted us with brilliant lessons about Dante, Boccaccio,Petrarca, Manzoni, Omero and Virg...

Read as part of my degree and as part of my love of classics, however it didn't compare to The Odyssey which I adored - possibly due to the lack of mythological creatures and rather more battles and lists of ships and names, which made it that much harder to struggle through. Still a great read as one of the original classics but I would choose The Odyssey over the Iliad anytime.

The Achilles!Oh, Achilles! Achilles! You steal every scene that you are in. You have made this my favorite poem of all time (and I love others).Your reputation for being stubborn, arrogant and hateful are conveniently brushed aside, precisely because the people that you kill are as misogynistic, brutal and violent as you.But you have your saving graces. You are humorous, but never humble. You are intelligent, but also ignorant and you are majestic as well as manly ( I don’t think of that as a po...

What I learned from this book (in no particular order):1. Victory or defeat in ancient Greek wars is primarily the result of marital spats and/or petty sibling rivalry in Zeus and Hera’s dysfunctional divine household.2. Zeus “the father of gods and men” is a henpecked husband who is also partial to domestic abuse.3. If you take a pretty girl who is the daughter of a priest of Apollo as war booty and refuse to have her ransomed, Apollo will rain plague on your troops. And he won’t be appeased un...

The original Marvel movie?What struck me most about The Iliad on this first read is that it has so much more in common with whichever blockbuster is showing at your nearest multiplex, than it does with novels as we know them today.It’s just SO cinematic, and the storytelling techniques on show are SUCH familiar ones. Sweeping bird’s eye views of the battlefield; up-close scenes of celebrity combatants fighting one-on-one, complete with trash talk; stirring speeches; even the pre-battle montage o...

3½ starsTwo mysteries were solved by my finally finishing The Iliad. 1) It is so obvious why these Ancient Greek stories have survived for so many years-- it's all gory violence and sex. Homer tapped into these marketing tools early. 2) I now understand why puritanical attitudes toward female sexuality developed. Pretty much everything bad that happens is caused by Helen of Troy - "slut that I am" - running off with Paris, and Hera seducing Zeus. The ancients must have read this and been like "...

TROY VI: THE INVENTION OF ACHILLES “The Classics, it is the Classics!” William Blake is said to have exclaimed, with pointed reference to Homer, “that Desolate Europe with Wars!”Blake's exclamation might not be as atrocious as it sounds at first. There might be some truth to this, a universal truth.Significantly however, this is not how the ancients understood it. They understood war as the catastrophe that it is.Strabo, the Roman geographer, talking about the Trojan wars, puts it thus: “For

Last year I attended a conference where one of the speakers stated that literature starts with Homer. I love to read so I thought that maybe I should see what the fuss is about with the cradle of the written word. I do not like poetry but I said that maybe it is time to learn how to appreciate it. Well, it didn't go well. I appreciate its worth but It was a chore to read and I had to stop after 100 pages or so. No more epic poems for me.

i like to pretend that someday i'll reread the million-page classics i half-read in school

I’m often kept up at night brooding on my troubles, wishing I could find some solace that would help me sleep. But now I know that the best way to keep insomnia at bay is to get out of bed, hitch up my chariot, tie the corpse of my mortal enemy to the back, and drive around for a few hours, dragging him, until I cheer up and can go back to sleep. The Iliad is unmatched, in my reading, for works that describe the bloody, ridiculous, selfish lengths people will go in order to feel better. The stic...

Pablo Picasso spent his entire life trying desperately to do something new, something unique. He moved from style to style, mastering and then abandoning both modern and classical methods, even trying to teach his trained artist's hand to paint like a child.In 1940, four French teens and a dog stumbled upon a cave that had lain hidden for 16,000 years. Inside, they found the walls covered in beautiful drawings of men and animals. When the Lascaux caves were opened to the public, Pablo Picasso vi...

At my college graduation, the speaker was a gruff professor. He was one of those older men whom people somewhat patronizingly describe as a teddy bear to convey the idea that while he looks like Santa Claus, they wouldn’t be surprised to see him arraigned on assault charges at the local courthouse. I liked this professor in general, and his graduation speech was a grand: warm congratulations on a crisp early-summer day. He decided to inform us, however, that anyone who had not read The Iliad and...

"Did you really LIKE the Iliad, mum?"My son has just finished reading it, and his question is valid. Do you really LIKE to read line after line of gory murder, repeated endlessly from song to song? I evaded the question, speaking of fantastic opening lines, of classic art and immense influence on other authors. And then I capitulated - a little:"The Odyssey is much more interesting as a story!" I said."So you didn't like it then?""I liked reading it!"And we agreed that some books just ARE. As a

After reading The Illiad I faced a quandary- how do you review one of the most important and enduring works of creativity in human history? What can you say that hundreds of thousands of others haven't?My answer to this question is that I must join the chorus of those who have come before me and sing the praises of what is one of the best stories I have ever read, as fascinating and gripping now as it no doubt was when it was penned nearly three millennia ago.There are many reasons why this book...

as a native english speaker, im not exposed to translated books very often; so this reread is the first time where i have truly comprehended the significance of a translation and how it can either make or break a story. i first read parts of ‘the iliad’ back when i was in school and i just remember the text being very stiff and formal. it did not hold my attention at all because i couldnt understand it. but as i have come to love this story over the years (through retellings and other media), i

This was a terribly hard read for me. I struggled to finish it, but finish it I did. 😕

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐I have only a few things to say.It's definitely worth reading (duh) but you need to brace yourself for a slow-paced, overly detailed writing. (Like all the classics.) There's so much description and I found the dialogue pretty complex and long. (Again like all the classics.) Agamemnon is unlikable and the only reason I hate Hector is because he killed Patroclus and he was my favourite. Achilles and Patroclus were meant as a couple, I've never been more convinced. The Song of Achilles

”The true hero, the true subject, the center of the Iliad, is force. Force as man’s instrument, force as man’s master, force before which human flesh shrinks back. The human soul, in this poem, is shown always in its relation to force.” - Simone Weil (L’Iliade ou le poème de la Force)***SPOILERS AHEAD (If it's possible to spoil arguably the best-known story in history, 3000 years after its creation... You can never be too careful)***Hear me fellow bookworms, children of Zeus whose shield is thun...