LiteratureBook · -750
The Iliad
Homer
The poem covers a few weeks in the tenth year of the siege of Troy and is really about Achilles sulking, then grieving, then doing something unforgivable to Hector's body. It ends with Priam kissing the hands of the man who killed his son.
Why you should read this
This is among the earliest surviving works of Western literature and the foundational epic behind the Greek literary and rhetorical tradition, composed in dactylic hexameter for oral performance. Expect extended battle catalogues and formulaic epithets rather than a tight modern narrative.
- Field
- Literature
- Form
- Fiction
- Published
- 750 BCE
- Themes
- Epic, Ancient GreeceLiterature
