Homer’s Epics: Iliad and the Trojan War
**Homer’s Epics: The Iliad and the Trojan War**
**Homer’s Work**
Homer was a contemporary of the events narrated in his work. The city of Troy was taken by the Greeks around 1250 BC, five centuries before the *Iliad* was written. The bard was writing the verses and a singer of warriors’ deeds accompanied him, inspired by the Muses. They were part of the Mycenaean world when the Greek alphabet was not known, but a writing system existed. The bard was Mycenaean. He created a syllabary and sang learned lines, never from memory of what he had seen written. At the end of the 8th century BC, the Greeks had already adapted the alphabet from the Phoenicians. The sung poems were fixed, and recitations began. Homer was one of the first rhapsodes. The bard recited verses, an artist with a staff with which he struck the ground while marking the rhythm. Homer belonged to the second era of early Greek epic, the breeding season, and off the primitive and oral creative era. His life goes on five centuries after Homer.
**Characteristics of the Epic**
From a formal point of view:
- **Oral:** Poems circulated by mouth and were accompanied by a musical instrument.
- **Invocation to the Muse:** Always at the beginning.
- **Formulaic Language:** Orality relies on repetition.
- **Repeated Scenes:** Typical of the Mycenaean world.
From the narrative point of view:
- **Deeds of Warriors, Heroic Actions, and Prowess:** The basic content of the oral saga. The whole world of warlike aristocratic warriors is sung and exalted.
- **Death in Combat:** Heroic death derived from it, glory, and fame.
- **Intervention of Divine Characters:** Active intervention in the dramatic action.
- **Digressions and Actions at the Margin of the Basic Argumentative Axis:** Frequent, resulting in complex reading.
- **A Dramatic Organization:** Of the collected epic material.
- **A Perfect Verse:** The dactylic hexameter, full of harmony.
- **A Colorful Language of Prodigious Sonority:** Some literary resources outlined in the stage of oral tradition rise to the level of an authentic style label: developed comparisons, similes, etc.
**The *Iliad* and the Trojan War**
The *Iliad* tells of the confrontation between Greeks and Trojans. The action basically concentrates on nine days. The greatness of Homer’s work resides in how he was able to see how Achilles’ anger could influence the outcome of a bigger event, the confrontation between Greeks and Trojans, and the destruction of Troy. The events preceding the *Iliad* were collected in *Cypria*, songs that narrated the origins of the Trojan War. The events of the war continued to be narrated in the five books of *Aethiopis*. The *Posthomerica* narrated in 14 books.
**Contents**
The *Iliad* consists of 24 rhapsodies or books, as divided by Alexandrian philologists in the 3rd century BC. It covers only nine days of the war.
- **Canto I:** Begins with the confrontation between Agamemnon and Achilles because Agamemnon robs Achilles of Briseis. Achilles, angry, decides to abandon the battlefield.
- **Cantos II to X:** Different leaders are present in action: Menelaus, Diomedes, Ajax, and Hector.
- **Canto XI:** Shows the nervousness of the Greeks before the advance of the Trojans. Old Nestor pleads with insistence, but in vain, that Patroclus persuade Achilles to fight again.
- **Cantos XII to XVI:** Mark the steady advance of the Trojans. Patroclus asks Achilles for his armor to frighten the Trojans. Achilles agrees. Hector faces Patroclus and kills him.
- **Cantos XVII to XXIV:** Achilles transforms into a raging torrent, carrying an anger that will not cease until he kills Hector. Hector dies in combat in Canto XXII against Achilles. The poem ends with the funerals in honor of Patroclus and the meeting between Priam, Hector’s father, and Achilles, where Priam goes to the tent of the man who killed his son to recover his corpse.
**Structure**
Achilles’ anger has a cause expressed in Canto I and some consequences that lead to Hector’s death and subsequent burial. The actions resulting from different decisions are chained in a logical relationship to the end.
**Preparation or Anticipation and Retardation**
The farewell of Hector and Andromache (Canto VI) gives meaning to the whole plot until the climax of Hector’s death.