/lit/ - Literature

>>8511687
>In your translation, perhaps. Not in the original. In the original, the first word is "sing".

"The Greek word menin ("wrath" or "rage") is the first word in the epic"

http://faculty.gvsu.edu/websterm/Read_Iliad.htm

http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0133

>What's wrong with you. It's an exploration of what is honourable, what leads to and deserves honour, whether honour is worthwhile, but it isn't something so simple as Man vs. Meanie State.

Like another anon has pointed out, the anon you responded to isn't necessarily saying these are all that the Iliad is about. You're simply retarded if you can't see how there is a conflict between man and state in the Iliad with all the examples in it, like the entire character of Hektor performing his duty to the state even though he risks death every time, and is begged by Andromache not to go out to the field anymore. Akhilleus turns his back on the army because he doesn't recognize a duty to the state; he was never there to fight a just war or help his comrades or anything like that, he went to gain honor only after having been found out by Odysseus when he tried to dodge the war (which Odysseus tried to do as well, again, showing a conflict between individuals and duty to state). Tons of ancient greek texts are about man against state, so it's far from ridiculous to think that it can be found in Homer too.

>You've managed to reduce Helen, a complicated character exploring the nature of love and justice and will, to a shitty symbol for dishonour. And Homer didn't invent the Trojan War, anyway.

Again, that anon is not necessarily saying that that's all that she is. She clearly does represent a dishonorable woman when you contrast her with Andromache (and later Penelope in the Odyssey), who is portrayed as a perfect, dutiful wife to Hektor. That anon is correct that Penelope is an example of the honorable woman leading to a happy ending, but this is the exact opposite of how it goes in the Iliad, with Hektor dying and Andromache mourning him, and later with Astyanax being killed, but obviously this is because Homer was wise enough to know that even virtuous people like Hektor and Andromache can suffer much without having a happy ending.

>You mean, for his dead fuckbuddy.

They're not mutually exclusive. There are very obvious reasons why Akhilleus gets so angry after Patroklus dies, and why after killing Hektor he holds games in his honor and mourns for him.

>The whole point -- a whole point, at least -- is that motivation cannot be boiled down to a simple Honour or Wealth (especially not alone).

He didn't say it could only be boiled down to those things, he was only making an observation that Homer exalts the nobility of honor, which he definitely does, among other things.

Read The Iliad and The Odyssey