The Illiad Analysis

Order Versus Chaos in the Iliad

The Iliad, by Homer, is an epic poem written as a testimony for the Trojan war. Although the city of Troy and the war are more commonly considered to be mythological, Homer offers us a tangible asset by often referring to nature, the one entity that will always remain familiar to us. It was rumored that Homer was a blind man, but this was debatable for the reason that he heavily used imagery of the natural world in his similes. The poem possesses a tension between the order of the natural world and the chaos of the social world as Homer often juxtaposes nature similes to environments of war. According to Mark Edwards, “because of its characteristically everyday content, the Homeric simile for a moment unites narrator and audience in their world, not that of the heroes” (Edwards, 39). Our perspective on the four elements, wildlife, and the environment are manipulated to describe war scenes. This approach is echoed throughout the text, but all three themes can be found constructed together within book II. The cluster of similes begins with the following:

“As ravening fire rips through big strands of nature

high on a mountain ridge and the blaze flares miles away, so from the marching troops the blaze of bronze armor, splendid and superhuman, flared across the earth,

flashing into the air to hit the skies,” (Fagles, II.ll 539-543).

Fire is often used in comparison to soldiers, from their actions to their energy. In this simile, the element of fire is destructive and “rips through big strands of nature” (II.l 539). We are given the imagery of a forest with its trees being burned down into flames. This “ravening fire” (II.l 539). is compared to the “blaze of bronze armor” (II.l 541) worn by soldiers. Armor is meant to be protective gear, but in the perspective of an opposing army, an enemy’s armor is just as alarming as fire. To say that the “fire rips through big strands of nature” (II.l 539) is indirectly suggesting that the soldiers who wear that armor are ripping through strands of nature themselves. As the trees have taken lifetimes to grow, we can see how Homer strategically used that imagery to describe how the Archaean solders plan to take down the civilization of Troy; a city that took decades to grow. We know at this point that Troy has yet to be attacked since Homer specifies that the fire is “on the peaks of a mountain”. “The absence of danger is reinforces by placing the unnamed observer at a safe distance” (Scott, 50). This simile was used to explain that even the idea of war can kill the growth of culture. As the troops move closer into Troy, they become associated with wildlife. The following simile compares armies of Archaean soldiers to flocks of birds. The birds in the Iliad call for attention in their own right;