The Iliad

The Iliad's first word in Greek is menin — rage. Why does Homer make rage, rather than war or heroism, the poem's announced subject? What does this tell us about what the poem actually is?

Achilles withdraws from battle because Agamemnon has taken his prize. Is Achilles right to withdraw? Is the cost — his own people dying — justified by the wrong done to him?

In Book 9, Achilles says: 'The same honor waits for the coward and the brave. They both go down to death.' He is questioning the entire heroic code. Does the poem ultimately agree with him — or does it offer a different answer?

Hector tells Andromache he must fight even though he knows Troy will fall. He says aidos (shame before the community) compels him. Is Hector brave, or is he a prisoner of a code that will kill him?

The Iliad gives every dead warrior a brief biography — a hometown, a father, a reason for being at Troy — before killing him. What is the cumulative effect of this technique, and why does Homer insist on it?

The Homeric similes compare warriors to lions and storms, but also to farmers, mothers, and children. Why does Homer interrupt battle scenes with images of peacetime? What is the effect?

The shield of Achilles depicts the entire human world — cities at peace and at war, harvests, weddings, law courts, dances. Why does Homer place this image of the whole world on a weapon?

Zeus considers saving his mortal son Sarpedon from death at Patroclus's hands, but Hera tells him he cannot — if he breaks fate, all the gods will do the same and order will collapse. What does this scene tell us about the Iliad's theology?

Patroclus enters battle in Achilles' armor, becoming a substitute Achilles. Why does Homer structure the poem so that Achilles' closest companion dies wearing Achilles' identity? What does the substitution mean?

Homer compares Patroclus weeping before his request to a little girl tugging at her mother's dress. Why does Homer use this simile for a warrior about to enter combat?

Hector runs from Achilles three times around the walls of Troy. Homer compares the chase to a hawk pursuing a dove. Is Hector a coward? Does Homer think he is?

Athena tricks Hector by appearing as his brother Deiphobus, then vanishing. Hector realizes the gods have abandoned him and says: 'So the gods have called me to my death.' Is Hector's death fair? What does divine deception say about the gods' morality?

After killing Hector, Achilles says: 'I wish my rage could drive me to hack your flesh away and eat you raw.' What has rage done to Achilles by this point? Is he still human?

Priam kneels before Achilles and kisses the hands of the man who killed his son. Why does this gesture — more than any argument, gift, or divine command — succeed in reaching Achilles?

The Iliad ends not with Greek victory but with Hector's funeral. Why does Homer give the last word to the losing side? What does this ending claim about the poem's sympathies?

Helen calls herself a shameless whore — the harshest judgment on Helen in the poem comes from Helen. What does Homer accomplish by making Helen her own severest critic?

Achilles' choice between kleos (glory, dying young at Troy) and nostos (homecoming, a long quiet life) defines the poem. He chooses kleos. Was it worth it? Does the poem think it was?

The Iliad has been called both the greatest war poem and the greatest antiwar poem. Can it be both? How does a poem glorify warriors while condemning the system that produces them?

Andromache begs Hector to stay and he says he cannot. Hector's decision to fight is presented as necessary, but Andromache's plea is presented as equally valid. Does the poem choose a side?

The gods in the Iliad choose sides based on personal grudges, not moral principles. Athena supports the Greeks because Paris insulted her. Apollo supports Troy because his priest was wronged. What kind of universe does this theology create?

Simone Weil wrote in 1940 that the Iliad's true subject is force — the power that turns human beings into things, whether by killing them or by reducing the living to objects of fear. Do you agree that force, not rage, is the poem's real subject?

Achilles sings of the deeds of heroes when the embassy finds him in Book 9. Helen weaves a tapestry of the war. What do these moments of art-making inside the poem suggest about Homer's understanding of his own art?

The Iliad does not show the fall of Troy, the Trojan Horse, Achilles' death, or any of the most famous events of the Trojan War. Why does Homer choose to tell only this small part of the story — a few weeks in the tenth year?

Compare the Iliad's treatment of Achilles and Patroclus with modern depictions of intense male friendship or love in war narratives. What has changed in how we read their relationship, and why?

Book 6 shows Hector with his wife and child. Book 22 shows Hector dying. Why does Homer make us love Hector before killing him? What does this structural choice accomplish that killing an unknown warrior would not?

The Iliad has been translated dozens of times — by Pope (1715), Lattimore (1951), Fagles (1990), Mitchell (2011), Wilson (in progress). Each translator makes different choices about register, diction, and tone. Why does translation matter — and what does it mean that every translation is also an interpretation?

Achilles knows he will die at Troy if he fights. He fights anyway. Is his return to battle a heroic choice, a suicide, or something else entirely?

The Iliad depicts women primarily as prizes, captives, or mourners — Briseis, Chryseis, Andromache, Hecuba, Helen. Yet the women's speeches are among the poem's most powerful and honest. How do we reconcile the poem's treatment of women as objects with its treatment of women as voices?

In Book 24, Achilles and Priam eat together after their meeting. Achilles says: 'Even Niobe ate, though her twelve children lay dead around her.' Why does Homer include this detail — and what does it say about the relationship between grief and the body?

You have just read a poem that is nearly 3,000 years old about a war that may have happened 3,200 years ago. Name one moment that felt contemporary — something you did not expect to recognize. What does this tell you about what Homer understood?