Literature

The Iliad is one of the two works that has been on the syllabus since Lit Hum began.

It was also recently voted as the fan-favorite by hundreds of alumni and students in the #CoreMadness contest. If you have more time to  read these days,  prepare to revisit the famed story of Achilles and the Battle of Troy.  Listen to Core Lecturer Kate Meng Brassel CC’06’s short audio intro to the poem along with her reading guide, below. Even if you are unable to reread the full poem, Meng Brassel says, "you’ll appreciate the extraordinary richness that emerges from re-reading this poem in particular among Core texts."

“The Iliad in its ambivalence about glory and death challenges most of our current ideas about what is right and wrong, what is true, what is heroic, and finally, what is human."

-David Denby CC'65, Great Books

Iliad Reading Guide

Note: The Richmond Lattimore translation is used for this guide.

Books I-V:

Take the prompts below as points of departure for your discussion: power and persuasion; the complex positions of Helen; the wound of Menelaos and masculinity; Diomedes and the male body; and some similes for close reading… And enjoy re-reading the epic!