Iliad essay intro

In various myths such as the Iliad, the Epic of Gilgamesh, and Herakles, divine intervention was called upon in order to restrain a hero’s destructive or too powerful forces. Although the divine intervention was used to impair different heroes, the purpose to constrain was the same in all the narratives.

However, the same invocation also mentions the “countless losses” suffered as a result of the Trojan War ( 1.2 ). While much of The Iliad celebrates the splendor of military victory, the poem also honestly depicts the costs of war, which significantly undermines the idea that war is a wholly glorious endeavor.

The Iliad is an epic poem that glorifies the heroic ideals that war imposes on its men. War itself has a strange, deadly fascination for those who are involved. Although war is characterized as being dreadful and grim, it is also characterized as the way... Throughout human history, people have been infatuated with the role of the “hero”.

How do the characters’ various attitudes toward war reveal different aspects of war? The Iliad celebrates war and the men who wage it: man-killing Hector, lord of men Agamemnon, and swift-footed Achilles, whose rage is cited in the poem’s famous opening line.