Iliad Book1

The Iliad recounts the events when the Greek siege of the city of Troy during the final year of Trojan War. The epic begins with the conflicts between Achilles and Agamemnon. At the beginning, Apollo sent the plague onto the Greek army due to his priest, Chryses was insulted by Agamemnon. Agamemnon refused to release his daughter Chryseis. Achilles then summoned an assembly to figure out the reason. Calchas, the prophecy interpreted what must be done to appease Apollo, which including release Chryseis to her father. Agamemnon was unwilling to retrocede the girl but he was forced to do so to end the plague. To make up the reward, Agamemnon took away Achilles's concubine Briseis, which lead to the rupture between Achilles and Agamemnon. Achilles was furious and he decided that he would not involve into the war anymore. He also felt that he should not deserve less than Agamemnon. Therefore, Achilles prayed to his mother, the goddess of the sea, Thetis for revenge. Thetis then interceded with Zeus in Olympus. Recalled that Thetis once helped himself, Zeus promised to help Achilles to be an indispensable person in Trojan's success.

Willie Ho

After reading The Iliad books I and XXII, I couldn't help but think about how most of the characters are portrayed to be pompous and overconfident individuals who shouldn't be because they probably are not capable of anything. Agamemnon was arguing with Achilles in Book I about how he deserved whatever amount of profit whenever there was a battle won. Achilles was angered than he and the other troops did all the fighting yet Agamemnon took all the loot/credit. Achilles was ready to kill Agamemnon but then he didn't because Minerva came down and basically told him there is no point in killing Agamemnon because he will perish later. It seems that Achilles is full of rage at all times in The Iliad. In Book XXII, he is on a rampage and just wants to fight everything and everyone. All he cares about is fighting and fighting efficiently. He chases down Hector, who is known to be quite powerful as well. Hectors attempts to flee from Achilles but is tricked by Minerva, who appeared and came to help Achilles again. After defeating Hector, he dishonors Hector's death by allowing the Achaeans to stab and spear at his body. He then ties his body to a horse and drags it to Hector's parents. I did not like the character of Achilles. He is a monstrous powerful and abusive warrior, much like a big bully. On top of that, Minerva keeps assisting him in his rampage of rage.

The Iliad

The Iliad, Book I and Book XXII were both very interesting literary works to read. They weren't overly worded or too ancient to understand like past texts we've been reading in class. While Book I tells us about the disagreement/the bone of contention, Book XXII provides us with the resolution. However i do not understand why Achilles is fighting with Hector in Book XXII when he had a problem with Agamemnon in Book I. Achilles is the definiton of an epic hero due to his charisma and his love to win wars for the glory of his name. One thing i found weird was how the fight was portrayed in Book XXII. The writer stops in the middle of a fight scene and starts to talk about somehting totally outside of the battle scene. This tends to take away from the fight and might not make a reader take the fight seriously or understand the gravity of the fight.

Book 1

The first book of the Iliad was an interesting deviation from most of our reading materials. The main difference lies in the fact that this is not a creationist myth, but instead an epic poem told about the conquest of Troy via the poet Homer. The Iliad serves as a back story for the later poem, The Oddessy, which switches the focus from Archilles and Agamenmon to Odysseus.

In the First book of the Iliad, the main characters and background is established, via a type of prologue to the main action of the Iliad. Agamenmon is asked by a priest to return his daughter, and when he refuses, Apollo punishes the Greeks by sending down a plague upon his people. When Agamenmon finally relents and surrenders his prize to her father, he takes Archilles's trophy woman instead, to which Archilles becomes angry and wrathful; pulling back from the conflict that Agamenmon so desires to be fought.

Overall, this story has played an integral role in all societies since it's recording, and still holds up as a riveting tale today.