/lit/ - Literature

Everyone in college seems to be saying ng Achilles is gay but then I read the Iliad or complementary texts and it really doesn't look that way. In the Iliad he is collecting war brides, they both sleeps on opposite ends of the tent from Patroclus with their war brides, Achilles impregnates a girl before leaving for Troy, and not once does the Iliad have a directly gay situation at all. The whole text is war, funeral games, and glimpses of the gods.

Why is non existent gay sex the most important thing for scholars when reading the Iliad? Why is that more important than Achilles refusing to fight because the war bride he wanted to marry was taken from him and him causing the Achaean war machine to come to a halt by refusing to fight?

>>22990241
Right, I love Hector, and I think he's a fascinating character, but they have him stop fighting once he kills Patroclus and totally remove the fight over the shining bronze armor. The trash talking and self aggrandizement that Homeric heroes do is great, but you're right, it's totally alien to a modern audience.