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The Iliad

Background Information

The Iliad is the song of Ilium (the name of a city of Troy), written in 800 BCE. It is an epic (oral poetry) about the Trojan war, a battle bwteeen the Greeks (the Achaeans) and Trojans. The war was between 1700 and 1200 BCE. Illiad was set during the last 50 days of the war. Achaeans, Argives, and Danaans all mean Greeks. Greek states: Mycenae, Sports, Myrmidons, Ithaca, Salamis, Argos Each state has their own kings. A Polis means a small town in ancient Greek. There weren't much entertainment in the ancient Greek, there weren't school system, so the recitation of the Illiad had an educational function as a public form. Types of education that the Illiad provided:

  1. Literary education
  2. History education
  3. Moral education
  4. Basic social codes
  5. What is an ideal male, what is a good life
  6. Honor virtue
  7. Human's position in the universe The poem was sung by poets or singers, they will remember the entire poem in their head and recite it by singing it as a performance for the audience to watch. The poem has rhymes with hexametric style. The poem has Epithets (titles), used to control the flow of the rhythm of the poem.

Plot

Agamemnon took Achille's woman Briseis (Trojan prisoner). Chryses (Apollo's priest) asks Apollo for Agamemnon to return