![]() ![]() Achilles is young and brash, a brilliant fighter, but not a great diplomat. He comes from the north of Greece and is therefore something of an outsider because most of the main Greek princes in the poem come from the south. ![]() The central figure in the Iliad is Achilles, the son of Peleus, a mortal aristocrat, and Thetis, a sea-goddess. ![]() There is no doubt that Homer and other early poets could rely on a very extensive knowledge of the Trojan War among their audiences. However, Homer and other early epic poets confined their narratives to particular periods in the war, such as its origins, key martial encounters, the fall of the city, or the returns of the soldiers to Greece. This sometimes surprises modern readers who expect the whole story of Troy (as, for instance, in Wolfgang Petersen’s 2004 film Troy). The epic poem deals with a very short period in the tenth year of the Trojan War. This story had a central place in Greek mythology. In fact the Iliad takes its name from “Ilios”, an ancient Greek word for “Troy” situated in what is Turkey today. ![]() It tells part of the saga of the city of Troy and the war that took place there. Homer’s Iliad is usually thought of as the first work of European literature-and many would say it is the greatest. Credit: Achilleion at Corfu/ wikimedia commons CC BY-SA 3.0 Homer’s Iliad: The Story of the Trojan War. ![]()
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