Approximately a year ago Reed College sent adorable pre-frosh me a package containing a Reed Class of 2019 sticker, a pencil that said “THOUGHT CONVERSION APPARATUS,” a cute little notebook patterned with griffins, and a copy of Homer’s “Iliad” translated by Richard Lattimore.

I read that translation of “the Iliad” three times over the summer in preparation for Humanities 110, partially because I need to read a piece of literature at least twice in order to feel like I understand it enough to try to analyze it and partially because it was kind of a slow summer.

Now, most people have heard some variation of the statement “’The Iliad’ is the foundation of Western Society, and it is Very Important since it contains within it all of the values that make the West Great.” Most of these sources would also argue that Western culture is somehow better than other cultures, which is an opinion that I think is based on colonialist agendas, but I digress. I, having heard this belief of “the Iliad’s” foundational importance spouted by a couple of academic sources, tried to read a Barnes & Noble translation of “the Iliad” when I was fourteen, since I was kind of Obnoxious and had something to prove, specifically that I was just as smart as some of my friends that had read it as a part of their Latin classes. I did not finish it, because I hated every single one of the characters of the Iliad, and decided that I wasn’t going to make myself miserable reading something that sucked just because it was something Intellectuals Liked.

14-year-old Carrie’s conclusion regarding the Iliad was that it glorified selfish, arrogant, misogynistic creeps and that if “the Iliad” was the foundation of Western Society, then Western Society was Utterly Awful. The only future that “the Iliad” offered for anyone who wasn’t an able-bodied, upper-class man was enslavement and death. People who aren’t members of the aristocratic/warrior classes are not considered people in “the Iliad,” and frankly, that’s kind of evil. I still think this. Additionally, I was led to believe by my peers at the time that Paris was supposed to be some kind of a romantic hero, which is just bad analysis since Paris is the actual worst character in the book, an impressive feat considering that he’s in the same book as Agamemnon.

This is where I’m going to interrupt myself and say outright that “the Iliad” was actually my favorite Hum reading because I really dig the way Homer describes things and I like exploring the concept of eternal fame.

Anyway, back to “the Iliad,” its place in society, and my experience with it, which is what this article is about. The rambling way this is written so far might detract from that. However, it’s my article and I can ramble if I want to, though I will not end a sentence with “to” since it makes my skin crawl.

“The Iliad” itself is kind of a weird book if we’re going, to be honest, first, because it’s not actually a Book exactly and second because people try to project modern American notions of morality and heroism onto it when those notions really don’t belong. It’s not exactly a book because it started as an oral performance of a poem and modern notions of morality and heroism don’t apply to it because most notions of morality and heroism seem to be based on Judaic and Norse texts (Note: this is based on my own observations and I need to research this more). For example, the heroes of “the Iliad” are not self-sacrificing, but are still Heroes, whereas in order to be a Hero in modern American culture one must sacrifice oneself. Additionally, modern Heroes must be motivated by a need to do good in some way, unlike the Greek heroes whose motivations are primarily securing their own legacies as Important People in order to achieve a form of immortality. Seeking fame is generally frowned upon now, despite its popularity, and the ideal Hero is supposed to be humble and avoid attention. Some try to project a value of working with one’s friends or the value of friendship onto “the Iliad,” though personally, I do not think that this applies since the relationships between warriors are not like modern ideas of friendships in that the warrior relationships are more hierarchical than what many would consider “friendships” now. Specifically, the Greek warriors of “the Iliad” are not “team players” and would not have considered themselves as such.

Likewise, adaptions of “the Iliad” generally focus on romantic, heterosexual relationships that may or may not actually exist in the original text. This is because romance is entertaining on some level, though personally, I find a lot of the adoptions really uncomfortable since they paint certain behaviors like kidnapping in a rosy light. The women of the Iliad are ultimately possessions, not people, and to portray the relationships between men and women in the Iliad as fully consenting and equal is inaccurate. The exception to this is the relationship between Hector and Andromache, but their relationship is stable and happy, so who cares? I mean, Homer does, but who cares now? I doubt that the Greeks would have disapproved of any of these relationships, but apart from the relationship between Paris and Helen I doubt that the Greeks would have considered any of these relationships as love-based. This paragraph doesn’t actually relate very much to the rest of the article, but I’m keeping it since this portrayal of kidnapping and sexual violence as romantic and heroic is really toxic, and unfortunately, is a place where this misinterpretation of the Iliad does still influence modern attitudes.

Then what’s the point of talking about “the Iliad” if it doesn’t really apply?

Well, basically, because people say that it applies, which means that in a backward way it does apply. Regardless of whether or not it actually is foundational, people claim that it is, and since it’s been defined as a foundational text, it has become a foundational text. It’s the individual reader’s matter to determine the truth of whether or not “the Iliad” actually influences us now in our daily lives.