Terry L Byrd Jr. Byrd 1
Adam Valencic
World Literature 201
Jan. 25 2014
The Iliad Vs The Knight’s Tale
Being a great hero has been in all time periods of time and in many works of literature.
The two works of The Iliad and The Knight’s Tale are no different in the views of being a hero and the ideals of the being a hero. Being brave, showing pride and believing in justice and having courage to stand up and fight in what you believe in no matter the consequences.
The heroic ideals are found to be the main concept the authors wanted to show in both
Iliad and The Knight’s Tale. Heroism and bravery are the most important part for being a man in both time periods in the Trojan War and in Chaucer’s time. Pride and reputation are very important and any injustice to them was considered to be a weakness for men in the works.
Thesesus in The Knight’s Tale is a protector of the rules and order and sees to it that everyone follows them. He is also a man with a good reputation which is clear when we are introduced to him in the tale. Theseus is also a representation of the rules a...
believed to be less of a person during the Middle Ages. If you were to loose your honor,
The Iliad, the Odyssey, Beowulf, and Hamlet are classical stories that are still relatable and debatable to read and discuss. Though some of the stories are intertwined or continue off one another, the character and stories are distinctive. The stories contain different hero development and progression among them. All the stories contain an idea or concept of a hero that may not necessarily have to do with gaining power or control like modern superheroes. Power and control are referred to having to be the ruler and having the ability to do what you'd like. The modern heroes selflessness of a human on duty or even volunteering, and that person’s willingness to put their own lives on the line for the lives of absolute strangers, is specifically the quality that redefines the modern hero and separates them from heroes in the past.
Using the above definition of hero and heroism, this essay attempts to assess three famous heroic characters portrayed in arguably the three greatest literary epics known to humankind, Achilles of Ancient Greece, Sundiata Keita of Ancient Mali and Rama of Ayodhya in what is today Modern India. With references to Stanley Lombardo’s translation of Homer’s Iliad, D.T. Niane’s Sundiata and R.K. Narayan’s translation of Valmiki’s Ramayana, this essay seeks to compare and contrast the attributes of these heroes, the morals associated with their heroism and their reasons for engaging in battle.
The perfect image of a true hero is Beowulf. His courage and confidence seems to come naturally. He is the ideal man; he puts others before himself and has amazing physical and mental strength. He is so revered that he can boast about his achievements without seeming vain. “I had greater strength on the sea, more ordeals on the waves as any other man.” (Luizza 69)
Homer’s moral exemplars in the heroic tragedy, The Iliad, can be analyzed to further understand warrior ethics. Agamemnon, a powerful warrior king, was proud and arrogant. These qualities made him an excellent warrior and the Greeks respected him. However, Agamemnon demonstrated excess pride and arrogance, as well as stubbornness. The Greeks believed that people must face their destiny with pride and nobility.
drive to conquer the Trojan army with or without the aid of Achilles. In doing
In my essay I will be breaking down the meaning of a hero according to the literature text. The two heroic figures that I will be using to describe the meaning of what a true hero is will be protagonists Beowulf and Gilgamesh. Each Individual has their own ways of becoming a rememberable hero. One theme in both stories is their unmatched physical abilities and skills. Beowulf and Gilgamesh show heroic characteristics throughout the two stories. No hero is just like the next hero, but Gilgamesh and Beowulf have similar stories that portray their heroic characteristics.
In the Homeric world, honor is qualified by power. In the Iliad, power is measured several ways. When Nestor tries to mediate between the enraged Achilles and Agamemnon, he makes the point that “power and glory [are] given by Zeus himself” (Book I, Line 294). A king is the ultimate in nobility, even if he is the king of a small, poor Greek city. Being a king depends on accident of birth, not on ability, and is a sign of the gods’ favor. Because the gods have smiled on him, “a scepter-holding king has honor beyond the rest of men” (Book I, Line 293). In the Greek army...
‘The Odyssey’ by Homer, ‘The Aeneid’ by Virgil and ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee were written in different eras, were produced for different audiences and contain heroes which displayed different beliefs. Though produced in different time periods, the narratives share some striking similarities and resemblances. They focus on male heroes, typically who are (in some way) more inclined compared to the ‘average mortal’. Atticus is very intelligent, Aeneas is a great leader and Odysseus is remarkably courageous; all three narratives deal with the trials, challenges and achievements of the hero.
Written around 800 B.C.E. and 700 A.D. respectively, The Iliad and Beowulf are epics telling the stories of heroes and their triumphs throughout their lives. While there are heroic characters in both books, some major ones stand out. In The Iliad, Achilles and Hector emerge as heroic since both heroes manage to fight bravely for their homeland. In Beowulf, the hero is Beowulf due to his courage for both his people and the Danes. Although The Iliad is focused on the lives of young heroes while Beowulf focuses on the journey of one from young to old age, there is a common theme of revenge and its effects on mortals and nonhuman entities. In both books, the desire for revenge can change a character's morals by compromising their sense of humanity.
In the book the Iliad, The Odyssey, and Works and days, there are many things that can be similar when talking about Greek heroes and the world of Greek poetry. The stories and topics are describing similar events during this time of the eighth and seventh century B.C. In the end, however, they do have some differences in some parts when describing or explaining certain situations and ideas. The world of Greek heroes is written like a story; or Epic Poetry. That is what The Iliad and The Odyssey are; Epic Poetries. They are telling a story of a great hero and their adventures. On the other hand, the more realistic Greek World that is being described in Works and days is a Didactic poem, which tells more of a moral or message to the reader.
Despite their differing value sets, the Homeric and chivalric ideals of heroism are both similarly dependent on definitive perspectives of valuation, action, and selfhood. This is why the lens of heroism is the most effective lens through which to analyse Troilus and Cressida as a textual and thematic palimpsest. Most obviously, the conflicting versions of heroism have contradicting ideals. As Bruce Smith observes, “A man cannot be the chivalrous knight and the saucy jack or the Herculean hero and the merchant prince at the same time – or at least he cannot comfortably be so.” The Troy legend produced in medieval and Renaissance collective consciousness an originary basis for literary tropes and heroic moulds. Characters such as Achilles, Ajax, and Hector become synonymous with various brands of masculinity and heroism, and the titular characters of Troilus and Cressida have cultural resonance as archetypal lovers, a concept which is moralized and gendered, who are either true or false in their vows to one another. The play engages with the audience’s collective memory, refiguring the well-known myths so that they are self-referential and distorted. Troilus and Cressida is the Trojan War inverted, the character or Achilles, or Helen, seen as if reflected in a funhouse mirror. They are at once themselves, and (potentially poor) imitations of themselves (a point which is stressed in Ulysses’ criticism of Patroclus in Act 1, Scene 3). Edward L. Hart asserts that the play is a dramatic question, posed by Shakespeare to himself: “What would happen if one should write a play in which all values are reversed, a play in which the mirror held up to life reflects not a positive but a negative image?” The very nature of these characters as archetypes further emphasizes the effect of Shakespeare’s particular moulding of them in a way that destabilizes
In today's society, a man's mind is his most important tool. In the past, however, a man's courage and strength is all that he had to keep him alive. In Homer's Iliad, courage is valued over honesty and even faithfulness to one's wife. If a hero is the most courageous man in the bunch, then Hector is more heroic than Achilles and King of the Myrmidons. Hector is the true hero of Homer's Iliad.
When I think of a hero I immediately think of someone who is strong, intelligent, handsome, and daring. Upon closer examination, many different qualities than these become apparent. Courage, honesty, bravery, selflessness, and the will to try are just a few of the overlooked qualities of a hero. The definition of heroism changes with the context and time. Heroes of the past are not necessarily heroes of present time and vise versa.
We’ve all had are moments when we wanted to be a hero, to wear a cape, and help others who felt they needed a helping hand. Being a hero can be so much more than saving someone from a life or death situation. In the ancient Greece modern time, a hero was a woman who was well-known and would obtain a status after a death of a lover. To the Greeks, the urgency of heroes was a mythical thing because it molded the future “heroes” (Kreyche p. 82). This dates to today’s heroes. Every mythical and non-mythical story has its heroes, especially the ones kids have created in books and movies. The definition of heroes has progressively changed throughout the years. Today, our heroes consist of a person having “great courage, especially for a noble purpose” (“heroism”). Throughout the years, heroism has been created to show one’s grateful purpose, their effects of being a hero, and what it took to keep the status of a “hero”.