Homeric Epics

About The Iliad

Homer's Iliad (c. 8th century BCE) is the foundational epic of Western literature — a poem about approximately 52 days in the tenth year of the Trojan War, centered on the wrath of the Greek hero Achilles after he is dishonored by Agamemnon. The Iliad explores war's cost, the nature of heroic glory, and the impossibility of mourning across enemy lines; it established the conventions of the epic tradition that Virgil, Dante, and Milton all worked within. Companion work: the Odyssey, Homer's other epic about Odysseus's return from Troy.