Stylisation
The Homeric world is patently not realistic, yet at the same time it is consistent. It is this consistency that enables it to be credible. The weather may only be of importance as an accompaniment, the topography changeable and the fighting not true to real life, but these are never barriers to understanding the poem and often are aids.
Weather and Seasons
The weather in the Iliad is never any concern unless it emphasises what is happening on the battlefield. In Book 7 (477ff.), Zeus thunders all night as he plans troubles for the men of both sides. In Book 16 (657f.), fierce fighting is accompanied by dark clouds and Zeus covers the conflict in the darkness of night, in order to intensify the struggle over his son Sarpedon's body. More radically, in Book 17 (366ff.), the fight for Patroclus' body is shrouded in darkness, while elsewhere there is bright sunlight. The rain of blood that Zeus sends in Book 11 (53) because he is planning many deaths and that he sends in 16. 459 to honour Sarpedon are further, more supernatural, examples of how weather is used to reflect upon the events of the war. It is never simply described without it conveying any significance.
The seasons, meanwhile, are never mentioned in the main narrative, despite their relative importance within the similes. We are given no idea as to what time of year the Iliad is set. Allied to this is the lack of focus on the discomforts that the different seasons would present.
Topography
The topography of the poem is similarly non-naturalistic. The River Scamander is sometimes a formidable obstacle, sometimes a trifling obstruction, easily ignored. The plain on which the war is fought is not characterised consistently, but throws up different features at different times, as the poet sees fit. For example, in Book 20, there is a hill, Callicolone, present, on which the gods sit, but which, until this point, has never been mentioned. The wall built by the Achaeans is sometimes represented as being there and sometimes is not represented at all. At 5.587, a warrior falls into deep sand, a hazard that is mentioned nowhere else in the poem, while a large stone (14.410) and a tree (6.39) appear as required but nowhere else. This stylised topography adds to the vivid nature of individual episodes and contests, without detracting from the poem as a whole.
The Fighting
The fighting in the Iliad is highly stylised. If a warrior is hit by an arrow or a spear of a hero, he simply dies immediately, rather than spending time groaning and dying a protracted death. Diomedes' speech to Paris, at 11.389ff., is a clear expression of this. Heroes who are injured, however, recover relatively quickly, with the single exception of Philoctetes who is left at Lemnos with an incurable wound (2.721f.). We also see repeated scenes where a hero is shot at but the arrow misses and kills another, less important figure. For a hero to die, there must be a set-piece duel. They are never killed by random shots. As is fitting, they dominate the battlefield and we are never shown a warrior of a lesser rank achieving any success. Although this is obviously not realistic, it is to be remembered that the heroes wear complete metal outfits and have been trained in the art of fighting, while the rest are mainly unarmed, a fact that, to some extent, accounts for the heroes' superiority.
The way in which the battles are fought is non-naturalistic. They are a series of single combats, in which other people play no part. While fighting each other, neither of the warriors will be attacked by a third party. There is also a stark contrast in the way in which the Achaeans and Trojans are described. When hit, the Achaeans do not groan loudly, while the Trojans do. They simply fight on or leave the battlefield manfully. The sequences of deaths are also regularly Trojan-Achaean-Trojan, while the Trojan army is represented throughout as rowdy and undisciplined and the Achaeans' as organised and silently determined. Implicitly as well as explicitly, therefore, the Achaeans' superiority is emphasised.
The warriors are also represented as knowing one another and invariably exchange speeches before embarking on their single combat. They also know about each other's families and about particular stories from each other's past. This serves to humanise them and to recall that there is an existence outside the conflict that they are presently engaged in. The mention of their families also cannot fail to imply the harsh reality of war, namely that many people will be deprived of their next of kin.
Similes
No-one who reads the Iliad can fail to notice Homer's extensive use of similes. Many are long and elaborate and often use only an initial correspondence before embarking on a long description that seems to have little to do with the narrative action to which they are supposed to relate. These similes serve to add colour and contrast to the poem. Comparisons of heroes to powerful elements in nature, be they animals, such as lions, or natural phenomena, such as storms, add to their glory. Undignified similes can serve to emphasise certain themes that are important within the work, for example describing Athena's protection of Menelaus as being like a mother brushing away flies from a child (4.130ff.), or Apollo's destruction of the Achaean wall as being like a child knocking down its sand-castle (15.360-6) stresses man's impotence in the face of the power of the gods.
The movement from an initial correspondence to a freer description of a scene that is not tied to the narrative enables Homer to include aspects of the world that would not normally be described in a poem about war. He creates an epic that is concerned with the whole world and not simply the Trojan War. The life external to the conflict that we see in the similes is in pointed contrast to that which we find outside them. Thus, when we are asked to compare scenes from battle to agricultural and domestic tasks and specialist trades, we are invited to see what the Homeric world was like before the present struggle, and what it is like elsewhere away from Troy. This is the life that the warriors left and this is what they wish to return to.
Oral Poetry
Following the work of the American scholar Milman Parry at the start of the twentieth century, it has become generally accepted that the Homeric epics are the products of a tradition of oral poetry. It is immediately noticeable on reading the poems that the major characters are regularly described with standard epithets that do not alter in different contexts. Thus, Achilles is described as 'swift-footed' even though he may be sitting down, or Odysseus is 'resourceful' even though he may not be demonstrating any particular mental prowess. Closer inspection of the texts reveals that the combination of a hero's name and his particular epithet recurs at the same point in each line that it is mentioned. Parry suggested that this was due to the poet requiring standard phrases to fit metrically at those points when he wished to describe that hero. If he were delivering the poem orally in front of an audience, it would be impossible for him to tell his story fluently and maintain the strict hexameter metre, if he were improvising his narration. The use of these stock epithets facilitated his task. Working outward from this starting-point, it can be seen that, in fact, much of the Iliad is made up from standard building blocks. Not only are the names and epithets of the heroes recurrent throughout the poem, but whole scenes are described using the same, or nearly the same, phrases. Where there is no repetition of whole scenes, there are word-groups that are also used elsewhere.
To suggest that these standard formulae were all invented by one man in order to enable him to tell his story more easily is not beyond the bounds of possibility, but it is much more likely that they are the result of an inherited oral tradition. Over generations, the episodes and scenes were told and retold by successive bards in a standard manner that became imbedded in their narration, due to their adherence to metrical needs and the prop that this afforded to their narrator. Thus, a particular scene or type of scene was always told in the same way, regardless of whether it was slightly at odds with the scenes surrounding it. If this was the case, then it goes a long way to explaining the inconsistencies that do occur in the Homeric poems.
It is still uncertain, however, whether the Iliad and the Odyssey themselves were orally composed and transmitted. Homer is believed to have lived at a time when literacy was beginning to enter Greece. Whether he actually wrote down the poems is unknown, but even if he did, they certainly seem to be derived from oral poetry and his techniques seem to be those of an oral poet.
Sample Questions
1. "A celebration of the glory war can bring to those of heroic character". Is this a fair description of the "Iliad"?
- Consider what heroic means. Does the poem pre-suppose what heroism is? If it does, then does it confirm or reject this concept? Does it then provide a new concept of heroism?
- Which of the characters in the poem could be described as 'heroic'?
- Are these characters portrayed as at ease with their predicament?
- Is the poem really concerned with glorifying war?
- Does the poem suggest anywhere that glory can be attained by those not 'of heroic character'?
- If you agree with the quote, is it a fair description of the Iliad, or is it too one-dimensional?
2. "Homer's similes are an irritating distraction that get in the way of the real concerns of the poem". Discuss.
- What is the function of the similes in the Iliad? Do they all have the same function?
- Are the similes important to Homer's narration of his story, or are they simply digressions?
- Would the poem, shorn of the ornament of the similes, be more interesting and direct?
- What are the 'real concerns of the poem'?
- Are the similes in agreement with or at odds with these concerns? Do they add anything to them?