Review of The Liad Poem

The poem of the Iliad takes place in north western Turkey, outside the walls of the once thought to be made up city of Troy. Troy was the city that the Trojans called home and the place the Iliad takes place with the major battle that occurs over ten days. The city of Troy was discovered by a german archaeologist known by Heinrich Schliemann in 1865. The Iliad still to some scholars has an unknown author, but the poem’s authorship was give to a blind poet by the name of Homer. Homer himself is a bit of mystery and some say that he never existed at all or that he 7th or 8th B.C.. I chose for my reading and listening pleasure the Alexander Pope translation of the Iliad. I found this translation to fit my type of reading over the few other translations that exist today.

The poem of the Iliad is a poem that contains many characters, mortal and god alike. The Trojans and the Greeks both have their acclaimed heros that you follow through the poem, while the gods of both these men hang in the flanks getting ready to intervene to protect or let die depending on their will alone. The poem opens with the rage of one of the greatest hero’s in some eyes, Achilles. Achilles plays a major role in this story and is quite often the focus for the majority of the poem, but shortly have it begins he is stung by the great Agamemnon and vow’s that he will not fight this war he has begun. The war between the Trojans and the Greeks started because of the Trojan prince Paris stole away the wife of a Greek commander, Menelaus. Helen of Troy is the main reason or the underlying reason that this entire story exists. The greek army has come to Troy to either take the city or be given Helen back, but clearly Paris being greedy for that he cannot give up and...

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...t I could not put them in the context that the Greeks could in regards to this setting. It was quite memorable having never read this poem and I will take something away from this story knowing that it was a poem written about a war that took place in a factual place. I loved the battles in this book, they were fantastic with the fantasy of the gods coming in to strengthen the hero’s on the battlefield or to use the powers the gods wielded to lay waste to the armies below, but if I can give any advice to readers is to know the Roman gods such as Neptune or Poseidon if you are following the Greek pantheon. I had to break during my reading to research some of the different gods mentioned because I would think it was Zeus or Ares when in fact it was not.

Works Cited

Homer, Alexander Pope, and John Flaxman. The Iliad of Homer. New York: Heritage, 1943. Print.