Is the Iliad the greatest thing ever written?

I think that greentext might be in contention.

>>8609011
reading it right now

not at all

>>8609007
>not reading Infinite Jest
Are you even trying?

Yes it is.

>>8609017
I agree.

It's interesting at times but too fucking long at others. Too many irrelevant characters who are mentioned just to die.

>>8609026
>Too many irrelevant characters who are mentioned just to die.

This has immense thematic value.

The iliad was meant to be heard, not read. It was orally composed over generations, and then compiled years later into a "definitive version."

>>8609033
I was going to mention that. It was one of the things that resonated with me the most. Shows how fragile life is among other things.

>>8609026
Ikr?
Why couldn't Homer learn to write like George R.R. Martin?

Tbh the Iliad is boring af, the movie was better.

>>8609035
>I was going to mention that. It was one of the things that resonated with me the most. Shows how fragile life is among other things.

Yeah, precisely. There's no discrimination in the Iliad.

"Very like leaves
upon this earth are the generations of men—
old leaves, cast on the ground by wind, young leaves
the greening forest bears when spring comes in.
So mortals pass; one generation flowers
even as another dies away."

>>8609035
This guy knows. Some parts are designed not so much to be heard, but to be mnemonically remembered.
Hence the myriad superfluous adjectives, characters, &tc. Remnants from it's oral origin.

dude FUCK PARIS

>>8609033
It does in two ways. In our way and in the probable Greek way.
For us it shows a lot. It shows the relative worthlessness of earthly achievement, the chance randomness of war, and in a funny way it even shows us the anonymity of battle.
But the Greeks probably had much more concrete, local stories around these guys which Homer is borrowing from. I doubt it would be sentimental for them in the sense of zooming in on random characters to see them die. Less "tsk tsk everyone dying here has a rich history which we depend on the narrator to tell us" and more "oh shit, that's the guy from our island that was really good at hunting rabbits. represent."

>>8609038

>if you don't like homer you must like george rr martin

>>8609033
>>8609035

I didn't look at it like that. There were parts I took that away from the book but the endless characters was not one of them.

Such as two brother being slayed, the narrator goes off and describe the father who will never see them. It's tragic.

>>8609053

How long ago did you read the Iliad?

>>8609050

I agree here, but I don't think we can confidently assert that Homer is not saying the same thing to his Greek audience as he is to us, that is, he's also telling them that war is awful.

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>>8609052
I was mocking you for being an uncultured retard.

You should put down the classics and wait to read them when you grow up.

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>>8609007
>yfw Paris used to be considered the greatest of the heroes of the Iliad in the middle ages simply because he was pretty and they associated beauty with divine love/worth
FUCK PARIS

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>>8609092
Who the fuck told you that? Was it a woman?

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>>8609092
I'm currently writing an essay on heroism in the Iliad. Fuck Paris indeed. How people anywhere could view him as anything but an effete fucboi is beyond me.

I'm writing on the greatness of Achilles and the contradistinction between him and Hector who represents a more contemporary view of the heroic as imposed by years of Abrahamic influence. In the end it boils down to the enormity of his deeds, his prowess, and his divine parentage. Not that this precludes modern appeal, considering the poetic beauty of his grappling with death, it is tragic and wonderful and timeless. Anything to suggest anons?

>>8609096
A professor. He was quite knowledgeable.

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Decided to properly read the Iliad soon enough, but before that I'm curious as to one thing: why does Athena side against the Trojans?

She's supposed to be the goddess of "purposeful" warfare. Does she believe that the Argives are in the right somehow, or is she just offended at Paris awarding the apple to Aphrodite?

>>8609139
1. She's offended at the whole Paris-and-the-apple thing
2. Paris kidnapped Menelaus' wife. The Trojans weren't in the wrong, but Paris certainly was and they were helping him

Fucking Paris

>>8609139
The Judgement of Paris pissed her off. But then again, why the story was told as such is likely because she was preferably associated with the Greeks to begin with.

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This post is dedicated to Hector, killer of men, and the best of the Trojans.

R. I. P.

>>8609193

RIP

>>8609193
What is the greek equivalent of RIP?

>>8609193
>... To you will come fresh grief / in your lack of a man to ward off the day of slavery. / But let the heaped-up earth hide me, dead, / before I hear your cry as they drag you away.

Fucking legend

>>8609163
>she was preferably associated with the Greeks to begin with.
Another thing: the Trojans aren't Hellenic, are they? Speaking culturally/ethnically. I mean, they worship the pantheon, but is it a Greco-Roman equivalency kind of thing? I notice that the colonization of Ionia takes place, like, five hundred years after 1200 BC which is the supposed approximate date of the war.

Are they (the Trojans) supposed be speaking Greek in the story, or their own tongue, something related? Was that even considered? Would listeners to the story have considered the Trojans "Hellenic" by any stretch?

>>8609064
Reading it now. It's painful. But I'm getting through it slowly.

Im working my way through Adlers list.

>some light old testament reading next

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>>8609248
Meant to mention that I assume the people on which the Trojans may or may not have been based were Indo-European, like the Achaeans, and thus closely related, but also sufficiently distant for them not to have been regarded as Greeks per se.

>>8609258
>It's painful
I'd like to hear why? The style and subject matter make for compelling reading (and speaking) to me.

2archaic4u?

>>8609211
rho iota pi

Are there any books about the Trojan War that fill in gaps that were lost in the Epic Cycle? I'd like to read about what happened with the beginning of the war and afterwards with the sack of Troy.

>>8609314
The Aeneid has some of that. I haven't personally read it yet though.

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>>8609248
This is the one of the things that make the Iliad is so interesting in the western canon, it largely predates the idea of east and west, the delineation between the two that has been so promulgated following the later defeat of the Persians.

It is not a political story. It is a human story. The Trojans obviously did not speak Greek, and likely didn't worship Greek gods, if they existed at all, but they are portrayed with this factor essentially removed, as just people not unlike the Achaeans.

That being said, the Iliad does seem to indicate that the defenders occupying Troy came from various states, from many different origins, and were less cohesive than the Greek force, speaking different languages.

>>8609107
Orientals are truly subhuman.

>>8609018
Shut the fuck up, seriously, you stupid fuck.

>>8609107
wtf poor tigers :(

>>8609107
>Achilles
>heroic
He was just an entitled brat who ran to his mother at the first sign of difficulty who slept around and had connections as a result.

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In what order should I read the nice mythological epics? I was thinking Metamorphoses to get a general sense of all the gods and stories and background and that sort of thing, then the Iliad, then the Odyssey, and finally the Aeneid since that sounds in order. Or should Odyssey and Aeneid be switched?

>>8609110
I'm 90% certain Paris was intended as comic relief.

>>8609007
Yes. No subsequent work of literature has ever come close to its searing, clear-eyed, unflinching depiction of human mortality (death being the most serious concern of art).

>>8609026
>Too many irrelevant characters who are mentioned just to die.

That's one of Homer's best techniques: the catalogue of repeated humanising and then killing. One of my favourite parts of the poem is the death of Iphidamas at the hands of Agamemnon in Book XI. Homer describes the hero having left for Troy the day after his wedding, and now he will never see and enjoy his bride. Oh, and then Agamemnon decapitates his brother Coön when he tries to revenge. Grisly stuff.

>>8609414
Fucking wrong you idiot. Achilles is the greatest of all the heroes in the Iliad because he is totally pure: he both loves and hates honestly with an extreme of feeling. He never violates his sense of self-worth, even when Odysseus tries his tricky rhetoric and the Achaians attempt to bribe him with a fortune. Look, all the heroes in the Iliad are just dumb jock killing machines, even Hector mostly: Achilles is the only one to step back for a moment and challenge the heroic ethos. Do I really want to die before the walls of Troy for glory? Achilles is the only hero to come face to face with the pity of war, in the final chapter, where he weeps together with Priam over all these senseless deaths. Achilles is the only character in the Iliad to develop as it progresses.

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>>8609625
>even Hector mostly
Are you joking? Hector is presented as an ideal family man, he protects his brother and fights a war he didn't start, he is a symbolic patriarch for all of Troy shouldering her woes and making them his own, valiantly dying in her defense. His passing is to truly be mourned, just look his scene with his infant son, he's the furthest thing from a mindless meathead, he is a warrior yes but also gentle and fully capable of domestic life, in everything Hector is balanced, the perfect man. Even his fucking death is honorable, he accepts the judgement of the gods who betray him, understands and embraces his destiny -- completely unlike Achilles who broods over everything, lets his countrymen die to satisfy his ego, ultimately causes the death of Patroklus, violates the heroic code, desecrates Hector and just tarnishes everything he touches, which is he constantly enabled to do all because of his divine lineage aka the only thing he has going for him.

>>8609651
Achilles knowingly and directly challenges gods. There's quite a difference between their behaviors.

>>8609648
He's told three times not to keep pushing to the Greek ships and three times ignores the advice. It's Hector who is responsible for the fall of Troy.

>completely unlike Achilles who broods over everything
Why is that a bad thing? Achilles staying in his tent shows the strength of his character: he's not going to be bullied by a tyrannical incompetent in Agamemnon.
>lets his countrymen die to satisfy his ego,
They're not his countrymen. Achilles doesn't have any reason to be there except his own glory. When Agamemnon dishonours him he has no reason to fight.
>ultimately causes the death of Patroklus,
No, Patroclus does by ignoring Achilles' order not to take the fight to the Trojan walls.
>violates the heroic code, desecrates Hector
Which exactly is what makes Achilles so great, his feeling is god-like and therefore sublime.

>>8609656
Yeah so? He beats the river god.

I'm not going to say that Achilles isn't hubristic, because he obviously is, but that's a far different charge from "oh he's whiny so I don't like him", which is shallow and ridiculous.

>>8609464

I think you're pretty close, Metamorphoses is a good start, Odyssey before the Aeneid definitely. The Aeneid is hard to grasp if you've not read Homer. Ideally, you'll want a stronger grounding in Greek literature before reading Latin stuff but just having Homer is probably enough to properly enjoy Virgil.

I would read The Epic of Gilgamesh before the Iliad too, to get a feel for the genre before you dive into the Greeks, plus, it's a beautiful piece of literature, I prefer it to the Odyssey.

>>8609666
>Hector is ultimately responsible for the fall of Troy
>Achilles isn't responsible for the death of Patroklus
That's beyond asinine.

And they are Greeks, are they not? They are his fellows, even if they don't hail from Aegina. If Achilles has suffered the slight of his rightful superior with any dignity and fought they would have all lived. Instead he vacillates for 10 fucking years over his moira -- Hector readily looks death in the face after his 3rd lap around Troy, he recognizes the will of the gods and dies with grace.

Achilles was impressive, in some martial sense, but he wasn't heroic.

>Hector
>Achilles
the original Asuka/Rei

Should I read The Odyssey before or after?

All these faggots sucking on Hector and achilles dick

Diomed is the real hero and the only worthy man

>>8609693
After and then read aenead (sp)

>>8609680
>Instead he vacillates for 10 fucking years over his moira
??? The Iliad takes place over a couple of weeks or something
>Hector readily looks death in the face after his 3rd lap around Troy, he recognizes the will of the gods and dies with grace.
Well no, Athena tricks him into facing combat against Achilles where he thinks he might win. What makes Achilles the greatest hero is that he *knows* he is going to die by staying at Troy but does so anyway. What makes Achilles the most interesting character is that he's the only one in the poem who makes an ethical decision.

>reading iliad
>epic fight
>character kills another
>immediately starts looting the body like a gypsy in the middle of battle

DROPPED

>>8609705
just like in wow bro, gotta get the loot drops

>>8609704
>??? The Iliad takes place over a couple of weeks or something
The entire war takes 10 years. The Iliad itself only depicts the near end.

>>8609704
>Well no, Athena tricks him into facing combat against Achilles where he thinks he might win. What makes Achilles the greatest hero is that he *knows* he is going to die by staying at Troy but does so anyway. What makes Achilles the most interesting character is that he's the only one in the poem who makes an ethical decision.
He recognizes that he has been tricked though. He isn't simply deceived, after that he lets it happen, he doesn't run a 4th time.

And you're deluding yourself if you think Achilles would have ever seriously departed from the war to live a life of obscurity. He simply sulked for 10 years on the sidelines while Greeks died left and right as a result of his arrogance.

>>8609705
It's a Greek thing dude.

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>>8609011

>>8609708
>And you're deluding yourself if you think Achilles would have ever seriously departed from the war to live a life of obscurity.
Except he has to be convinced not to in Book 9 by the Greek embassy?

Look, Achilles is the only hero to ask the questions that are at the core of the poem: is the heroic code really worth it? How should one act in life? How should one face mortality? Dismissing the character of Achilles with "whiny bitch" misses the entire point of the Iliad.

>He simply sulked for 10 years on the sidelines while Greeks died left and right as a result of his arrogance.
??? He sulks for the duration of the poem. Achilles has been fighting for 10 years before that. The reason he's so upset is that Agamemnon has just stolen his rightful loot from a recent expedition you moron.

>>8609705

You think that they just let expensive armour and weapons rot in the Bronze Age? Of course they looted the body.

>what is historical context?

>>8609719
>Except he has to be convinced not to in Book 9 by the Greek embassy?
Artistic flourish, he was always going to fight.
>>8609719
>Achilles has been fighting for 10 years before that. The reason he's so upset is that Agamemnon has just stolen his rightful loot from a recent expedition you moron.
Raiding vassal states, what a hero. His insistence on not being the one to go without is just as dumb and childish as Agammemnon's, he couldn't make that sacrifice and as a result his fellows, including his beloved fucboi Patroklus suffered. He had a direct hand in their deaths, he knew what would happen if he withdrew from the lines, he beseeched his mother to supplicate the other gods to bring woe upon the Greeks until they realized they needed him, he was the definition of a whiny bitch -- who because he happened to be good with a sword and his mother had a divine vagina is celebrated by a bunch of bronze age gypsies. Achilles a shit.

>>8609732
Your Christian morality is showing. Achilles was well within his rights to do what he did and not suffer the ignominy of being the both the greatest warrior in the entire army and the *only* hero in the army not to have any spoils (a slave girl to fuck). As for Patroclus, like I said, Achilles warned him not to attempt to take Troy in his armour and was ignored.

>>8609697
Then Metamorphosis (Ovid)

>>8609739
Agamemnon was well within his rights to take Briseis as well, yet Achilles has just cause for his impudence? A solider has no right to pout, he and his mother essentially consorted with the enemy with his prayers, he introduced danger to Patroklus and the rest of the Greeks that would not had been there otherwise. That Patroklus ever had the opportunity to disobey him was on account of Achilles, his unwillingness to see the wrongness of his deeds ultimately brought about the death of his boytoy, he was willing to risk him if it meant protesting against Agamemnon.

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>>8609705
>>8609707
>>8609721
Just look at this fucking swag, you think they're gonna leave it lying around for some other boy-loving faggot to cop?

>tfw the actual events of the Trojan war were probably lame as fuck

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>>8609798

>>8609147
>Paris kidnapped Helen
>she didn't run off with him willingly

>>8609163
This is the correct answer.

>>8609248

Scholarship tends to agree that the Trojans were a vassal state of the Anatolian Hittite empire, so they probably spoke some variation of their language. I imagine the Hellenic deities present in the Iliad were not worshiped in the same form or by the same name as the Greeks. Barry S. Strauss' 'The Trojan War' deals with this idea briefly if you're looking for a source.

>>8609801
>>8609798
wtf I hate Homer now

>>8609801
But thought the Greeks fought only in their underwear.

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>>8610164
You've been watching too much ancient greek anime.

>>8609038
The Iliad is just like George Martin. It's nothing but useless characters who appear once for the sake of dying and stock descriptions repeated over and over again.

>>8610194
Why are the asses so pronounced?
>>8610198
That's quite lazy of you anon.

>>8610198

This is embarrassing.

>>8610198
I know this is bait, but there are people who actually think like this.

>>8609705
>>Diomedes jews an honorable Trojan out of his armor in an otherwise friendly exchange respectful to their fathers
>this somehow furthers his heroism
Phoenician propaganda really reaches far back huh...

>>8609705
It was a less civilised age.

>>8609684
Explain. Rei is love.

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I've always found it fucking mind blowing how some bronze age illiterate managed to conceive of such a thing as the shield of Achilles. Both the concept and the presentation seem so utterly modern it actually brings me to shame at my own lack of imagination.

Yes, because it had a precise function, it was the gospel of the greek religion.

>>8610311
>gospel
Not at all, the beauty of the Iliad is in its conception, it was extremely fluid subject to local and artistic influence, causing it to be continuously developed into a rich cultural fabric. It wasn't policed by priests, any worthy invention by anyone could be incorporated into the telling, weaved into the very myth of the world.

The Illiad is the equivalent of a Hollywood blockbuster war film like Saving Private Ryan. If you loosened your hats you psueds would see that it has less depth than you imagine.

Why do characters try to take dead champions armor?

>>8609211
ΡΙΠ

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>>8609401
wew lad, daddy did diddle you did he ?

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>>8609798
>>8609801
I would pay good money to see an iliad movie with historically accurate armour

Did anyone else read The Illiad in elementary school? We had to read it in the 6th grade and act out an important scene in front of the class.

This isn't meant to discourage the story because as 6th graders we couldn't analyze it on the same level as a college professor but I would like to know how /lit/ your education was. I went to a rural public school in California if that means anything to you.

>>8609038
The movie was damn good.

>>8610476
The armor holds they're soles. If they get enough they become gods.

>>8610201
squats

>>8610405
>centuries later still the subject of academic interest and debate
>le hollywood movie maymay
neck yourself

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>>8609007
Yes.

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>tfw just wrote some fuck a beautiful essay on the Iliad for 50$

>>8610194
There's no such thing.

Prove me wrong

What's the difference between the Argives and the Acheans? Are they the same groups?

>>8612685
Poetically speaking, yes. Homer uses the terms interchangeable alongside the Danaans, basically proto-Greeks.

>>8612692
Thanks

The Lattimore translation is shit, thanks /lit/.

>>8609107

Hector is clearly depicted as more heroic in the Iliad. Achilles desecrated the dead, doesn't bury his fallen friend, rejects the chain of command, doesn't defend the makeshift polis that is the Greek army until the death of Patroclus, literally fights a God, etc. Achilles, while a champion, is literally depicted as a man completely governed by passion. His opposite is Odysseus.

The Iliad and the Odyssey are essentially contrasting tales of great men that show how Odysseus is the greater man and model of virtue. If Achilles wasn't such a good fighter the Greeks would literally think he was the Hitler of their time.

>>8609694
Diomedes is fucking dwarfed on all fronts by both Achilles and Hector

There is no argument for him

>>8609732
Patroclus brought about his own death - he disobeyed orders to return to Achilles after pushing back the Trojans

>>8610476
Honor. Dont let the fucking enemies take your comrade's armor - and sure as fuck dont let them have the body even moreso

>>8612723
Hector is the better man; he is CERTAINLY not more heroic than Achilles.

>>8612702
how so?

>>8612750
>>8612723
>when he's throwin shade at Apollo
>"If you werent a god I would literally kill you for wasting my time"
>goes back to chasing hector

fucking madman

>>8612754
>literally wounds Ares, the fucking god of war amidst the battle
>bests Ajax in a spar
>beats that fucboi Aneas until his mom saves him
>tells Agememmnon if he wants to fuck off back to Greece with his tail between his legs he can, and take the entire fleet with you, I'll stay and wrap this shit up alone if need be
he was quite based

>>8609007
It was spoken

>>8612753
>mighty might

>>8612702
It's the best fuck off.

>>8612651
>tfw they didn't even glimpse at it before handing it in
sometimes I think I'm wrong to enable these sort of people

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>>8612817
>775hard over his body, as he in the turning dust lay
>mightily in his might, his horsemanship all forgotten
no anon it's 'simplicity' is just verbose terseness

>>8612830
>implying it doesn't effectually render the death scene of Kebriones as a parallel to Achilles grief upon hearing he slew Pat

>>8609007
Could any of you provide me with a pdf of the Iliad translated by Robert Fitzgerald?

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>>8609798
>people who unironically believe the trojan war happened and the city existed

>>8609193
F

>Not written by Bob Dylan
Don't think so chap.

>>8613427
>implying it didn't

>>8609752
Then Dante's Inferno
Then Paradise Lost
Then A Song of Ice and Fire

>>8615192
epic

>>8613427
>who is Schliemann

>>8609007
It's not the Bible

>>8613495
Underrated

>>8615468
His joke or Bob Dylan?

>>8615472
The joke

I do like myself some Dylan though

>>8610194
nice cock

it's a gorgeous, epic text but also kind of a slog through at parts. the bromance between patroclus and Achilles is beautiful

In what context? Given its era, I would say the amount of skill and effort that went into passing it down would make it the greatest thing written in terms of value to the West. Is it in terms of literary plot and language devices? No, there are many better pieces.

>>8609026
That's... the theme of the work, that war may be awesome at times and you can be a fuck-shit-up badass, but that a lot of good men with a story and a family and hopes and dreams will die for not much real reward.