Foreign or Familiar: A Second Glance

            My first year at Trinity I took the HUMA 1600 course in which I first encounter the Iliad. For our first writing prompt of the semester, our professor asked us to consider if the world within the Iliad was foreign or familiar, and once you’ve decided this, argue why you felt one way or the other. At first glance it seemed so easy to say the world was foreign: supplications, sacrifice, bows and arrows, bronze armor, no modern technology. It was a natural inclination to take the stance that the world of the Iliad was foreign. Even recently, while watching the movie “Troy”, I've noticed that the actors all use accents to implement a sense of foreignness. The brutality of the war is depicted as barbaric. The men wear really short skirts to fight in battles. It’s as if in our modern society it is easier to look at the Iliad and see the difference, to say, “this isn’t how it is now, look how far we’ve come”.

            Throughout this semester, by examining Gilgamesh, the Iliad, Memorial, various other poems inspired by Homer’s epic, and now watching “Troy”, I feel like I was able to get another in depth look at the question that was posed to me two years ago. Within the context of the Iliad we explore the ideas of fate or divine intervention, mortality, and emotions such as rage and love. We explore the questions that are built around the ideas of war: what is worth dying for? What is the point? No, we surely don’t run around in short man-skirts, waving swords and starting wars in honor of runaway lovers, and perhaps the gods that are worshiped have changed. But the motifs that are interlaced within the Iliad are ones that are still very prevalent today.

            So is the world of the Iliad foreign or familiar? Or more importantly, does this matter? There are definitely things within the Iliad that are vastly foreign, and things that are still very relevant today. I think that whether or not the world within the Iliad is familiar or foreign is only as important as the point you are trying to make; but regardless of your stance there is a reason this text has remained a highly read and discussed text for thousands of years.

Pledge: Michaela Knipp