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Comparison of Gilgamesh and the Iliad
Comparison of Gilgamesh and the Iliad
Comparison of Gilgamesh and the Iliad
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The Iliad
The Iliad is the first written document, of anything. Never before the Iliad was the tool of writing used to such an extent. The Iliad is a marvelous piece of work. Great in its fame and content, the Iliad was used as the first historical text, philosophical writing, and storybook. Historians use it for an account of an era. Philosophers use it as one of the basis of human thought. To children, it is a wonderful story of battles between man and their gods. It is a writing of many uses. One such use of the Iliad is that it is an illustration of humanity. It is an illustration that a man or womans life exists with conflict. The Iliad illustrates that it is human nature to create and live with conflicts, whether by choice or not, in order to have purpose in life. Humanity creates conflict by means of external and internal struggles, conflicts in humanitys own created ideas, conflicts in love, and even in times of peace, man create conflict.
In terms of external struggles, humanity creates his own external conflicts to bring about resolution to a present problem if a peaceful solution cannot be found. In the Iliad, the war between the Achaeans and Trojans began after Helen left with Paris for Troy. The fight for Helen between two men escalated to a war between two civilizations. Menelaos feelings for Helen did not allow him to just let her go without any trouble. Instead, he and Agamemnon rallied the entire Achaean civilization to fight Troy in order to bring Helen and her riches back. A peaceful solution was not found before the war began. Paris would not return Helen. To solve this turmoil, the war was brought about. A famous comedian, Martin Lawrence, was quoted to have said, Cant we all just get ...
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...e United States have jobs, which keep them at work from nine in the morning to five oclock in the afternoon. It is call the Rat Race, and to many, it does not sound like a very meaningful life to lead.
There is always the eternal question that is pondered throughout time: what makes a good life? Whether you had riches or lived poorly but happily, you get problems. Whether you made a difference in the world as a scientist or lived a peaceful life in the country, you have had your share of conflicts. Whether people encourage or discourage conflicts and problems, they exist. Conflicts can range from taking part in a war against a dictator to deciding who is the right man or woman for ones affections. It is human nature to create conflict whether by choice or with the help of fate. Thus, conflict must then exist as an essential part of humanitys own existence.
...to be achieved, years, decades, lifetimes, conflict is intended to fulfill this need. Ultimately, conflict theory is about the struggles, ideologies, representations, and power that the haves possess and the have-nots want to exert. These concepts come into play causing conflict between the groups which ends in social change.
In Homer’s prominent epic, The Odyssey, A male protagonist gifted with immense physical strength and power named Odyssey is traveling back home to Ithaca. Over the course of his 10 year journey across vast and treacherous waters, his physical attributes are not enough to help him reach home. He faces many obstacles that he must overcome. The most important obstacle is temptation. His journey home is full of temptation and will challenge his physical and mental capabilities that he must learn to control, and overcome, so that he can find his way back home.
Throughout the Iliad the warriors' dream of peace is projected over and over again in elaborate similes developed against a background of violence and death. Homer is able to balance the celebration of war's tragic, heroic values with scenes of battle and those creative values of civilized life that war destroys. The shield of Achilles symbolically represents the two poles of human condition, war and peace, with their corresponding aspects of human nature, the destructive and creative, which are implicit in every situation and statement of the poem and are put before us in something approaching abstract form; its emblem is an image of human life as a whole.
Iliad is one of the commonly understood pieces as epic that based on the Trojan War in ancient Greek. However, the meaning of the piece goes deeper and reflects more on the ancient Greek. The Iliad is a story about the evolution of Achilles persona and emerges as an epic of the war. Homer puts the elements of anti-war relatively on display portraying the ideal epic world that progresses through elements that defines the coexistence of the society.
The Iliad is an epic tale of war and hero’s within the Greek way of life. A
The Iliad, which is an epic poem written about the Trojan War, was the first thing written in the European tradition. Astonishingly, its quality and appeal have yet to be surpassed. This is a result of Homer's use of idealistic themes, many of which show up in many modern novels. One of the most dominant themes present in The Iliad is the pursuit of honor and glory. Even though the Achaeans and Trojans are in a violent battle with one another, both display a similar attitude: the acquisition of glory is more important than life itself.
Simone Weil’s essay “The Iliad: or Poem of Force” places importance on human interaction, the grounding, empathic, human relations which are rare, fleeting, and necessary. She claims Force to be a governing factor in all human interaction, and the ‘thingness’, which force prescribes to humans, as a dangerous, uncontrollable factor of human existence. In order to overcome force, one must direct all their attention towards recognizing others suffering. In her other essay, “Attention and Will,” Weil discusses religious attention as the most important. She claims that one must practice a passive attention to God in order to reach a divinity beyond reality itself which holds truth.
“Then the screaming and shouts of triumph rose up together, of men killing and men killed, and the ground ran blood.” From first examination the Iliad seems to be an epic founded on an idealized form of glory, the kind that young boys think about when they want to join the army. A place full of heroism and manliness where glory can be achieved with a few strokes of a sword and then you go home and everything is just lovely. Many people view the Iliad this way, based on it’s many vivid battle descriptions and apparent lack of remorse for the deaths that occur. This, however, is not how war is presented in the Iliad. Homer presents a very practical outlook on war countering the attainment of the glory with the reality of its price and the destruction it causes. He successfully does this by showing the value of the lives of each person that dies and, in a sense, mourning their passing, describing the terror and ugliness of war, and, through the characters of Achilleus and Hector, displaying the high price of glory.
Simone Weil argues that the way Homer presents war and the use of force in the Iliad, in all of its brutality, violence, and bitterness bathes the work in the light of love and justice (pg 25). The point Weil is making is that by depicting the suffering of all of these men regardless of their side, or strength Homer equalizes them in a “condition common to all men”(pg 25). Because Homer equalizes them the reader can feel empathy, or at least compassion for all of the men. However while Weil is correct about how Homer’s descriptions of war and force reveal justice and love, she is wrong in thinking that justice and love are mere “accents” to the Iliad, and progress through the story “without ever becoming noticeable”(pg 25). Homer not only reveals this underlying idea to the reader through his tone and even handedness, but also through Achilles’ journey. By the end of the Iliad Achilles understands justice and love in much the same way that the reader does.
Over the thousands of years that the epic story the Iliad has survived, there has no doubt been some form of alteration to Homer’s original. Last May, Wolfgang Petersen directed a movie based on the Iliad. This movie, Troy, has proven to be a very loose adaptation of Homer’s original, as are almost all stories that are made into movies, unfortunately. With its timeless storyline, amazing scenery, gorgeous actors/actresses and most of all, its reported two hundred million dollar budget, it is easy to see why Troy was hyped up to be a box office hit. However, the film critics were harsh on this movie, as they had every right to be, and it ended up being a total flop. Compared to Homer’s Iliad, Troy is rather disappointing. But, to be fair, one must keep in mind the limitations of a movie compared to those of a book, and the fact that the title is Troy, not the Iliad. It really is not as bad as expected. Troy is Homer’s Iliad gone to Hollywood. There probably are just as many similarities as differences from the original. The three major upsetting differences in Troy compared to the Iliad are the absence of the Gods, the weak character and plot development, and the addition, exclusion, and reversal of key points.
The Iliad is a classic epic poem written by Homer about the Trojan War and the rage of an Achaean warrior, Achilles. The book introduces the reader to the war and the personal battle between Achilles and King Agamemnon; because of this argument between these two major characters, Homer introduces the role of the gods when Achilles asks his mother, Thetis, to go to Zeus and beg for his interference on Achilles’ behalf. The major role the gods play in the Iliad is their interference in the Trojan War as immortal versus immortal and mortal versus immortal.
The 'Iliad'; by Homer is a book that deals with many emotional issues. I am going to talk about a few emotional parts of the Iliad and compare them to the emotional life of today. I have chosen a section of the book and will talk about the emotions that come up there. The section that I have chosen to talk about is in book 18 when Achilles is very angry and very sad about Patroclus death. After that he wants revenge by killing hector.
Homer's Iliad is commonly understood as an epic about the Trojan War, but its meaning goes deeper than that. The Iliad is not only a story of the evolution of Achilleus' persona, but at times it is an anti-war epic as well. The final book proposes many questions to the reader. Why not end with the killing of Hektor? Most stories of war conclude with the triumphant victory of good over evil, but in the Iliad, the final thoughts are inclined to the mourning of the defeated Hektor, which accentuates the fact that good has not triumphed over evil, but simply Achilleus triumphed over Hektor. Ending with the mourning of Hektor also brings to center stage for the first time the human side of war and the harsh aftermath of it. We see that war not only brings great glory, but also much suffering and anguish. Homer puts his anti-war views on display.
Divine Intervention is a “direct and obvious intervention by a god or goddess in the affairs of humans”. In various myths such as the Iliad, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Herakles, divine intervention was called upon in order to restrain a hero’s destructive or too powerful forces. Although the divine intervention was used to impair different heroes, the purpose to constrain was the same in all the narratives.
In American colloquial English, the word “conflict” has come to be used almost exclusively to convey a negative experience or encounter such as a war, battle, fight, or other dispute. Current conflicts in 2016 include the United States’ wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the presidential election, and Black Lives Matter vs. municipal police departments. However, one of the definitions of the word “conflict” includes a “mental struggle resulting from incompatible or opposing needs, drives, wishes, or external or internal demands” (Full definition of conflict, n.d.). The important part to note in this definition is that while the existing “opposing needs, drives, wishes, or external or internal demands,” may be incompatible, the use of the word,