Iliados

Textkit Community Open Board
1

It’s such a great work of literature that we can’t really speak of any one ‘meaning’ or ‘message’. But I’d be interested to know what other people take from the Iliad.

Personally I think that the Iliad addresses the human condition - suffering - phmata, kedea, algea, etc. Though the poem is about war, it encompasses all sorts of suffering: death, old age, bereavment, orphans, widows… and the meaningless and futility of human life (as brought out by the contrast with the gods)

This human condition was I think of particular concern to the Greeks because they had no belief in a good afterlife or a caring god.

[This incidentally, is why I think the Iliad is more relevant than ever to a society which is become ever more atheistic; it’s certainly been relevant to me in coming to terms with atheism]

But in war human suffering is magnified. In normal life, we know that we will die but it probably won’t be tomorrow. In the Iliad you might die tomorrow, and suffering is everywhere. Thus the human condition becomes an immediate problem.

Some might say that heroic ‘kleos’ (fame) is the way to escape the meaningless and insignificance of human life. But I’m not sure that the poem really does say this; the glory of war proves little comfort for Achilles or Hektor.

Perhaps the answer is humanity. Book 24 shows how humanity and sympathy can relive suffering.

Perhaps the answer is to face death. Achilles and Hektor accept their death nobly.

Or perhaps the Iliad is trying to tell us that this is the way it has to be. If there were no death and no suffering we would be like the unattractive gods in the book. There would no morality, no glory, no nothing. Compared to human meaningless, divine meaningless seems even worse.
(remember what Sarpedon says to Glaukon in book 13 - if i were immortal I wouldn’t need to fight)

What do other people think?

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But in war human suffering is magnified. In normal life, we know that we will die but it probably won’t be tomorrow. In the Iliad you might die tomorrow, and suffering is everywhere. Thus the human condition becomes an immediate problem.

I like that! I think you are right there, I hadn’t thought of that before :slight_smile: .



Some might say that heroic ‘kleos’ (fame) is the way to escape the meaningless and insignificance of human life. But I’m not sure that the poem really does say this; the glory of war proves little comfort for Achilles or Hektor.

I think that what he’s trying to tell us here is that going to war for glory is pointless and stupid. Fighting in a war is not really ‘heroic’. I don’t actually know what other poets around the time he lived and before were singing, but my guess (it’s only a guess) is that they were probably glorifying war. In my opinion Homer is trying to subtly (he must earn his money somehow so he couldn’t make it too obvious) tell us that this picture is wrong. A hero’s death in war is not glorious (all that brain splattering everywhere and so on for example, does that sound glorious?).
He’s also interested in telling us about the people fighting in the war and their personal lives (‘he will never see his family at home again…’ sort of passages).

Homer is also scared of death I think, at least he has a very negative view of it (in the Odyssey, where Odysseus goes into the underworld). Death is not the end, it’s worse - in Hades you are just a ghost of your former self, you can’t actually do anything, neither talk nor think properly, but you are aware of being a ghost. For the rest of time you’re aware that you are just a ghost… a terrible thought.
Agamemnon says he would rather work for a poor peasant than be dead, he would give anything to taste life again, even a poor life.
I think that tells us that Homer wanted to say: Wake up! War is terrible, you die in war, and what could be worse than wasting life like that? Don’t try and die for glory, try and live!
When he wrote the Odyssey he was of course an older man, and already famous, so he didn’t have to be quite as subtle. So yeah, I also believe that the Odyssey and the Iliad have the same or at least a similar message.

Hope that made sense :slight_smile:

3

Interesting.

I’m not sure you can read the Iliad as an anti-war poem. All the main characters - even the most pathetic - accept the necessity of war. War just happens; it’s just one of life’s sufferings. Even in book 24 it says something like “and then we will fight on the 10th day, if we must”. The desire not to fight (and to hide like women and children) is something that bad characters like Paris do.

I think it is quite likely that other poets were glorifying war. But just because Homer doesn’t glorify it does mean that he is actively condemning it. Bear in mind that the Greek philosophy was roughly: philoi - protect; everyone else you can kill.

Unless we see Homer as a sort of moral crusader. Book 24, with its message of forgiveness is actually a bit like this.

I don’t think that Homer is scared of death as such. It’s more that he wants to make sure that death is represented as nowhere near as good as life. This means that mortality is very real, and the human problem is emphasised.

Sorry if it seems like I’ve disagreed with all your points but that is the nature of great literature!

Thucy

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I agree, I don’t think he’s telling people to disband and leave your comrades to fight the war alone.

I think it is quite likely that other poets were glorifying war. But just because Homer doesn’t glorify it does mean that he is actively condemning it. Bear in mind that the Greek philosophy was roughly: philoi - protect; everyone else you can kill.

Which is exactly what I think Homer is trying to sort of protest against. As I already said though, subtly. He can’t openly condemn war, because of this pervading philosophy that you mention. He wants to wake people up and tell them that war is not great and heroes don’t die glorious deaths.
I don’t know if he believes that war is something unavoidable. That people are tired and wary of war is realistic, so I don’t think that proves your point. The way he uses the Gods is a bit difficult to interpret too.

I don’t think that Homer is scared of death as such. It’s more that he wants to make sure that death is represented as nowhere near as good as life. This means that mortality is very real, and the human problem is emphasised.

Sorry if it seems like I’ve disagreed with all your points but that is the nature of great literature!

Hehehe, that’s what interpreting literature is all about. It would be boring if we all thought the same. I do think he is scared of death though. He could just as well have made death worse than life without making it eternal torture.

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At the risk of sounding patronising, I think that your reading of the Iliad is shaped by modern literature and films, e.g. Saving Private Ryan, Vietnam films, first world war poetry etc etc.

I just can’t imagine a Greek coming up with a Jesus-like pacifist position. Remember that Nestor launches into long and proud anecdotes about his fighting time - fighting exploits which give him status. In the Odyssey Odysseus says that he is proud to belong to the forces of Agamemnon.

If the Iliad is anti-war, I’d expect some kind of alternative to be presented. But if it is pro-mortality, as I think, we have the clear alternative of the gods.

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Incidentally, we should discuss literature more here on text kit

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Eh… actually I’ve never seen any of these films, plus I don’t normally read poems :wink: .

I just can’t imagine a Greek coming up with a Jesus-like pacifist position. Remember that Nestor launches into long and proud anecdotes about his fighting time - fighting exploits which give him status. In the Odyssey Odysseus says that he is proud to belong to the forces of Agamemnon.

Sure, Odysseus is proud, but Odysseus is actually more sort of Homer’s alternative position. Agamemnon for example just charges home ‘heroically’, without a thought in the world you think sometimes. Odysseus on the other hand uses his brain :wink: . He’s not exactly a moral character, nearly every Achaean hero is more moral that Odysseus it seems sometimes. … It seems to me he is contrasting these two… I don’t know what to call them… ‘worlds’. The one world is the heoric world, the other is the ‘be sly’ world.

Maybe he doesn’t want to stop all wars, but it seems to me he doesn’t want his readers to think along the lines of: yeah, battle! I wanna be like Achilles when I grow up and kill loads of people!
Because basically if you’re a young lad, who thinks like that and becomes a warrior, chances are you won’t be a young lad for much longer but will be worm food instead.
(Much better to stay at home and tend sheep?) I don’t know… I’m not an expert on Homer. That’s why this discussion is so interesting :slight_smile: . I’m just telling what sort of feeling I get when I read the Iliad or the Odyssey and trying to defend/explain :wink: my position a bit.

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I’m no expert either

Maybe he doesn’t want to stop all wars, but it seems to me he doesn’t want his readers to think along the lines of: yeah, battle! I wanna be like Achilles when I grow up and kill loads of people!
Because basically if you’re a young lad, who thinks like that and becomes a warrior, chances are you won’t be a young lad for much longer but will be worm food instead.

I think that’s closer to the truth. Certainly there’s something of an anti-war message involved; but I personally don’t believe it’s the main message(s)

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I’m moderately surprised that no one else has answered in fact

10

My thoughts :smiley::

The Iliad is a poem about humans, and all that that entails. The issue Homer precisely deals with is human mortality and all the issues surounding it. On the one hand this means that unlike the gods, all humans will die. Our actions are ultimately short-lasting and our lives pale into insignificance when compared to those of the gods. But on the other hand, it is precisely because of our mortality that our deeds gain a tragic importance that is far greater than anything the gods can ever achieve. Just to offer an example: does the battle of the gods (book, er, 21 I think) seem as important or great as the duel between Hector and Achilles? No. Because the consequences for humans are far more dire than that for the gods.

To address one of the points being discussed between the two of you:

if you’re a young lad, who thinks like that and becomes a warrior, chances are you won’t be a young lad for much longer but will be worm food instead. (Much better to stay at home and tend sheep?)

I personally believe that this is the exact opposite of what Homer was aiming for, as these are the two options that Achilles himself has to choose between. Will he earn immortal glory at the cost of his own death, or will he sail home into a life of obscurity as a peaceful happy farmer? Achilles chooses the former- and although on the surface he would appear to be unhappy, this is more owing to the circumstances presented to him before he made the choice (i.e. Patroclus’ death). That said, Homer to me projects yet another side to war. While the honour and glory won in war may be great, Homer is under no illusions as to the nature of fighting itself. As you point out, Emma, the average warrior will indeed end up as ‘worm food’. Thus war, while it can make your name immortal, is no event that should be encouraged or even enjoyed.

On another note, I find it interesting how what we get from the Iliad can be very different to what the ancient Greeks got from it. For example, the pro-aristocracy themes prevailant throughout is almost wasted on us, as is the whole ‘Greeks vs. barbarians’ theme. Infact it’s very telling that the film ‘Troy’ cast the Trojans in a sympathetic light, depicting them as the innocent victims in a war for which the Greeks are to blame.

Thucydides: I agree, there should be more literature discussions on textkit. Maybe we should organise a textkit ‘book reading’ group sometime where we can then discuss what we got from the particular set book

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Eh… maybe not worm food… it was late at night when I wrote that… :unamused:
They’re always making funeral pyres all the time and collecting and burning the dead after battle, so they’ll be dust, not worm food (but worm food just sounded better).

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Well, for ages people have seen the Trojans as the ‘good’ guys I would have thought. Loads of royal families and dynasties have tried to claim Trojan origin in the past, why would they have tried that if they thought the Trojans were the bad guys? Except for the city of London of course… it was the Achaeans in London’s founding myth I think (have read that up again) :confused:

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So does my

"Or perhaps the Iliad is trying to tell us that this is the way it has to be. If there were no death and no suffering we would be like the unattractive gods in the book. There would no morality, no glory, no nothing. Compared to human meaningless, divine meaningless seems even worse.
(remember what Sarpedon says to Glaukon in book 13 - if i were immortal I wouldn’t need to fight) "

correpsond to your first paragrapgh? i.e. that the Iliad is an affirmation of mortality?

I’m still not convinced that kleos is Achilles’ motive or that it is his reward. in I he loses faith in honour and glory; in XVII he returns to the fight for a friend - not for glory. In the Odyssey he appears and says that kleos is no comfort to him.

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In fact, I’d go as far to say the Ilaid is about the defeat of kleos: Achilles demands kleos, gets it from Agamemnon (after a fashion) and it turns out to have caused the death of Patroclus. The Iliad shows how some things (humanity, friendship) are more important than kleos.

I think that the Iliad simply can’t be anti-war. The whole point of Homer is that suffering comes inevitably and must be endured (Nausicaa 6, Achilles 24). This would be ruined if the war were avoidable.

I’ve read an article by Oliver Taplin where at the end he says that Homer is utterly ambilavent towards war - that the rights and wrongs do not interest him.