The Iliad & The Odyssey annotated

by Homer facts

Kindle Edition

Published October 12, 2021

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Iliad

Keywords: Ancient Greece, Epic poem, Homer, Mythology, Classic Literature

Premise: The Iliad is a collection of 24 epic poems from Ancient Greece (670 BC) chronicling the war for Troy, before the concept of history was invented. The story focuses on the great Achaean (Greek) warrior Achilles’ emotional journey as he experiences the tragic cost of conflict, offering a timeless reflection on honour, rage, and empathy within the human condition.

Thematic Vision: The Iliad presents a stark yet compassionate view of mortal life: humans are flawed, transient beings trapped in cycles of conflict and flawed divine manipulation, yet are still capable of profound dignity and empathy.

Plot(s): These poems pre-dates traditional plot and narrative structures. However, there are elements of the Quest and Tragedy plot types, with minor elements of Voyage and Return and Rags to Riches

Short Summary: The Iliad dramatizes part of the final year of Trojan War, following the journeys of the greatest warriors on each side, Achilles for the Achaeans (Greeks), and Hector for the Ilions (Trojans). Achilles has withdrawn from the war, upset at his own King Agamemnon for seizing away Achilles’ trophy wife, Bribeis, for himself. As Achilles is believed to be a descendant of Jove (Zeus), the Olympians redirect their favor from Achaean to Iliad, and many Achaeans are subsequently slaughtered in battle with little resistance. Only Jove’s wife, Juno (Hera), his daughter, Minerva (Athena), and his brother, Neptune (Poseidon), are able to contain Jove’s wrath and prevent complete obliteration of the Achaean army.

Word gets back to Achilles that his dear comrade, Patroclus, has fallen in battle and his corpse is being mutilated by the Ilions, denying him a proper burial. This drives Achilles into a rage, finally allowing himself to put aside his differences with Agamemnon and to direct his efforts into seeking revenge by hunting down Hector, which would devastate Trojan forces. As Achilles is a descendant of Jove and a potential heir to royal lands, his return to battle also sways the will of the Olympians back in favor of the Greeks. Divine armor and shield are crafted for Achilles who gives chase to Hector. Hector is convinced to face off against his rival, after having been tricked by the gods to do so in order to spare other innocent lives. Achilles wins the duel handedly and rather than returning Hector’s body to the Trojans, he attaches the corpse to the back of his chariot and takes many victory laps around the battlefield.

Despite being dragged around face-first behind Achilles’ chariot for weeks, Hector’s body and head remain clean and undamaged, which is a sign of divine protection. As Achilles parades the corpse around Patroclus’ sepulchre, the corpse’s divine resilience prevents Achilles from getting the satisfaction he desires. Achilles is convinced by his mother to allow Hector’s father, King Priam, to ransom back Hector’s body, which Achilles agrees. Moved by Priam’s sorrow, humanity, and tears which echoed his own, Achilles relents and releases the corpse. The two enemies share a moment of mutual grief, acknowledging the universal toll of war. Achilles agrees to a 12 day ceasefire to allow the Trojans to grieve their fallen prince.

Characters:

Achilles - Achilles is the protagonist of the story, however he is largely inactive for the first dozen poems. He has withdrawn himself from battle after his own King had taken away his prized woman, Briseis (not his wife), even though this means that many of his own countrymen are being killed on the battlefield without his help. His pride is quickly overpowered by rage when he finds out that his best friend, Patroclus, is slain on the battlefield and will not be given a property burial if his body is not recovered. With the help of the gods, Achilles jumps back into battle and easily defeats Hector, claiming both corpses.

Unable to be the better man, Achilles vows to mistreat Hector’s corpse even worse than the Trojans had been doing to Patroclus’. However, the same gods that helped Achilles in battle are now protecting the corpse and not allowing Achilles to get the satisfaction that he so desires. As Achilles is faced with Hector’s crying father, he realizes that war has driven him to inflict the same pains to Priam, that he himself found to be inhumane. In a profound moment of empathy and growth, Achilles agrees to return Hector’s body and even allows the Trojans 12 days to appropriately mourn.

Jove (Zeus) - Jove is the most powerful of all Olympians and his temperament is as fickle as the winds he commands. He starts off the story strongly favouring the Trojans in order to cause suffering to the Greeks and King Agememnon, who had dishonored Achilles. His stance caused so much bloodshed that his own family had to work against him in order to avoid total annihilation of the Greek side. Jove’s mind is only changed when Achilles himself, one of Jove’s favored grandchildren, returns to battle.

Although Jove plays a large part in the story, he does not have much character. Actions attributed to him are dictated by what he believes to be “right” or “wrong” and has children on either side to carry out his will. Often his will seem to be fates that humans refuse to believe were just or deserved.

Juno, Neptune & Pluto (Hera, Poseidon, Hades) - Zeus’ wife, along with his two brothers, are three Olympians powerful enough to stand up against the King of the Gods. Their involvement in the story, along with many minor Olympians, create a dynamic hierarchy of divine powers over all things perceived to be outside of human control. Having numerous gods with varying temperaments and availabilities allows for the possibility for mortals not always being subject to the will of any single all-powerful entity. This contradictory structure allows for convenient uncertainty among acts of divinity, and in so doing, allows hope to take root on Earth.

Favourite Moments/Quotes:

Priam negotiates with Achilles: Even three thousand years ago, Homer knew that stories needed a climax before their conclusions. Although not privy to Achilles’ thoughts until after his transformation, we can see that Homer recognized the impact that this revelation would have on the audience. This shows some resemblance to modern storytelling techniques such as character growth and development, through Achilles’ ultimate reversal of emotions, and presentation of a conclusion that ties into the story’s themes of tragedies of war being inflicted on both sides and the resulting necessity of human compassion. Without this moment, much of the first 20+ poems may never have become much more than embellished recounting of historical events.

Juno tricks Jove: This scene was necessary to scale back Jove’s influence on the world. Being in full control of an all-powerful being would remove the meaning of the story, as well as in life itself. This was the scene that really illustrated the complexity behind the Olympians and creates the nuance that the gods don’t always get their way. It was very interesting to see how much of the telling of historical events had been attributed to Gods. This is an idea that resonates with me as I often contemplate on the concept of history and its mirroring of how human memories are perceived.

Opinion/Analysis:
I rated this book a 2.0/5.0. Although the story has a great climax and the narrative provides a fascinating perspective on the presence of the Ancient Greek Gods, the book is dragged down by its outdated writing techniques and prose. There are over 1,000 named characters in the book, which made the first 15 or so poems extremely difficult to get through.

My takeaways from this book tie into my two favourite moments listed above; early forms of modern writing and storytelling techniques, and the casual mingling of gods amongst men. Other storytelling techniques I noticed included warriors exchanging monologues in the heat of battle to establish stakes and character, and the repeated perfect relaying of information between humans vs trickery and deception from and amongst the gods to emphasize the contrast. I will continue to examine these ideas further in reading Homer’s next epic poem, The Odyssey, and watching the movie adaptation set to come out in 2026.

The Odyssey

Keywords: Ancient Greece, Epic poem, Homer, Mythology, Classic Literature

Premise: The story follows Odysseus’ 10 year journey home to Ithaca after the war of Troy, highlighting not only the hero’s perseverance but also that of his family who has been eagerly preparing for his return.

Thematic Vision: The epic affirms the enduring value of home, family, and cultural traditions as the foundations of a meaningful life along with the cunning, loyalty, and perseverance required to make it last.

Plot(s): Voyage and Return, Quest

Short Summary: Prince Telemachus sees that his home has been oppressed by suitors vying for his mother Penelope’s hand as it is widely believed that his father, Odysseus, has been lost at sea after the Trojan War. Penelope is holding out hope that her husband is still alive, and does everything in her power to postpone a second engagement. However, this approach results in a significant drain on the family’s finances. Guided by his visits from the Olympian, Minerva (Athena), Telemachus journeys to nearby allied cities of Pylos and Sparta to see if he can find any new information. Although he is unlikely to be successful in actually bringing his father back, Minerva states that it is important for Telemachus to be seen taking action in service of his father.

Meanwhile, Odysseus has been stranded for seven years by the nymph, Calypso, who wishes to marry the hero herself. It is not until Minerva is finally able to convince Zeus to intervene that Odysseus is able to escape. On his journey home, Odysseus must overcome several dangerous trials. Odysseus proves his strength in overpowering and blinding the great Cyclops, which incurs Poseidon’s wrath and makes travelling by sea ever more dangerous. He proves his mental resolve in journeying through even more dangerous paths through the Underworld and the deadly straits of Charybdis, guarded by the seductive sirens. Odysseus also proves his vitality by withstanding the trials of the mythical beings Circe and Helios, who claim the lives of the rest of his crew. After having been granted a magical disguise from Minerva, Odysseus finally arrives in the land of the Phaeacians, who grant him a ship, crew, and passage back to Ithaca.

Upon his arrival back in his homeland, Odysseus learns of the goings on in his home by meeting up with a loyal swineherd. The swineherd is able to covertly recruit Telemachus into the frey, allowing father and son to hatch a plot to not only take back their home, but to root out any disloyal countrymen. Telemachus and Minerva convince Penelope to host an archery contest for her hand, which Odysseus wins easily as the other suitors are not worthy of using his prized bow. After proving himself in archery, Odysseus and Telemachus slaughter the suitors and Odysseus is able to prove his identity to Penelope with a thorough description of their marital bed which she had not shared with any other man. Odysseus also orders the hanging of any housemaiden that sided with any of the suitors. After reuniting with his family and weeding out the suitors that were looking to take his place, Odysseus reconciles with the remaining families and restores peace to his homeland.

Characters:
Odysseus: Odysseus is the only character in the story that has any real character arc. He begins the story having been away from home for 20 years and desperately wanting to return. By the will of the Olympians, he is released from Calypso’s grasp and now must overcome many grueling trials and lose all his companions before he can find the way home. These trials test Odysseus’ strength, cunning, fortitude, and perseverance. When he finds his home, he realizes that it is not enough just to physically return. Under a divine disguise, he decides that he must test the loyalty of both his Son and his Wife to ensure that they have done their part in preserving the kingdom, mirroring the attributes that Odysseus showed through his own trials on the way home. Once this has been established, he comes up with a plan to root out all disloyal noblemen and housemaidens and have them killed. Upon succeeding, Odysseus himself then must prove his loyalty back to his wife to show to her that the perseverance has been reciprocated. With the royal family back together, they are able to reconcile with the remaining families and bring peace back to Ithaca.

Favourite Moments/Quotes:
Journey to the Underworld: Homer’s depiction of Odysseus’ journey through the underworld is laden with symbolic, psychological, and thematic significance that is still imitated in modern stories today. Odysseus descends to consult the dead and blind prophet Tiresias, to find more information of what is going on in his home of Ithaca. However, he soon learns that the prophecies of the dead cannot be trusted and realizes more than ever that he requires divine guidance, taught to be most valued in Ancient Greek society, which he seeks in the form of Minerva. Odysseus also encounters the spirits of his dead comrades, as well as his mother, who are lamenting on regrets that were made in their lives, inspiring Odysseus to re-evaluate his life values. This was a very interesting chapter to read as it shows the first iteration of our idea of the afterlife and how strongly those themes have endured for thousands of years.

Disguised as a beggar in his own kingdom: This part of the story shows that Odysseus’ resolve is not satisfied simply from physically returning home. In order for his house to be a home, it must maintain a certain standard of loyalty, strength, dignity, etc that Odysseus himself proved through his trials. It seemed at first that Odysseus may have been cavalier in not revealing himself right away, however it is this high standard that he has set up for his house that will ensure that it will endure further hardships and last beyond his own lifetime.

Penelope’s tests: After Odysseus wins his wife’s archery contest and reveals his true identity to Penelope, she further tests him by demanding of him to move their marriage bed, a task that only her husband would know would be impossible. Her tests work to reveal that Penelope has also been enduring her own trials of loyalty, cunning, and perseverance over the past twenty years, the same traits that Odysseus had been proving to the Gods throughout his odyssey. She accepts Odysseus as her true husband and his homecoming marks the culmination of the story’s central themes of the enduring values of family and home.

Opinion/Analysis:
I rated The Odyssey 3.5/5.0. The story was much easier to follow than the Iliad, however did not have as great of an emotional impact. Through the use of stories within the story (flashbacks), Homer is able to include more large-scale action moments, however they were never directly tied into Odysseus’ growth as a character.

Before the story even introduces Odysseus’ point of view, we see the impact of his absence on his son, Telemachus. Without knowing his father, Telemachus struggles with his own identity, worth, and concept of home. He is sent by the Gods on a journey to find his father and bring him home. This story echoes one of the core concepts of Greek mythology of the Paternal spirit (Zeus) possessing the father, and the son not being able to become a man until he either destroys this spirit, or rescues his father from its consuming nature. In my previous writings, I have shown appreciation for how this idea has become a foundational trope in the hero’s journey and it is always enlightening to see just how old these ideas are.

Much like the Iliad, there are some early versions of storytelling techniques that are introduced in The Odyssey. Although there is still very little development of character, the plot still builds to a climax and ends with the characters standing up for what they believe in and re-establishing their home. The story begins in media res (in the middle of the story) and uses flashbacks at opportune times to both recall key events and reveal more about Odysseus’ character. The Odyssey also uses multiple points of view (first Telemachus and then Odysseus) to add depth to the world by showing the impact of limited information to other perspectives.

Similar to the Iliad, the story of the Odyssey is rife with divine intervention, this time primarily from Minerva (Athena) and Neptune (Poseidon). These gods play a much smaller role than they did in the Iliad, however are still given credit for acts that were perceived to be beyond human control. Neptune’s role is to add to the struggles of Odysseus’ journey home, while Minerva shepherds both Telemachus and Odysseus to continue to do what they already believed to be right. The greatest turning points in the story (release from Calypso, killing of the suitors) are approved by Jove (Zeus) himself, which serve to explain the seemingly random will of the world.

[Glen Kirby · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Iliad review is found on my website www.glenvckirby.com due to word count.

Let me tell you what I thought the Odyssey was about before I read it. I thought it was about a man trying to get home. A hero, a journey, some monsters, a faithful wife waiting, a happy ending. I thought it was an adventure story wearing the clothes of mythology. I thought I more or less knew what I was getting.

I was wrong. Not about the plot. The plot is exactly that. I was wrong about what the plot means.

The Odyssey is not about getting home. It is about what getting home costs. And more than that, more quietly and more devastatingly than that, it is about what home becomes once you have been away long enough that both you and it have changed beyond easy recognition. That idea, so simple to state and so difficult to fully absorb, is what stayed with me long after I closed the book. You spend ten years at war and another ten trying to get back, and by the time you walk through the door you are not the person who left. And neither is anyone else.

That is not an adventure story. That is one of the most human things literature has ever put into words.

Where It Sits on This List

I read the Iliad first. Then this. That ordering is important and I want to spend a moment on it because the contrast between the two books is part of what makes each of them work.

The Iliad is about collective suffering, honour and the machinery of war. Also about what it does to everyone caught inside it. Individual heroes emerge, Achilles, Hector, Patroclus, but the war itself is always the largest presence in the room.

Then there is The Odyssey, which is intimate. One man. One journey. One home. And ten years of him trying to reach it, and a wave full of obstacles trying to kill, distract or seduce him into failure. After the collective tragedy of the Iliad, the focus narrows to something you can hold in your hands. And that narrowing is an enormous relief that somehow makes everything hit harder.

Odysseus

I need to talk about Odysseus properly because he is one of the great creations in all of literature and I do not think he always gets his due in the way that Achilles does.

Achilles is easier to understand. He is pure. Pure rage, pure grief, pure pride, pure love for Patroclus. His emotions are enormous and singular and they drive everything he does. You always know exactly where you are with Achilles because he is always feeling one thing with his entire being.

Odysseus is different. He is cunning, brave and loyal. He was also surprisingly unfaithful. But his ability to be patient and impulsive, sometimes within the same scene made him intriguing to me. He is a man who can spend years on Calypso's island in what any external observer would describe as paradise, sleeping with a goddess, living in comfort, and still sit on the shore every evening weeping for home. He contains contradictions that do not resolve. He is, in that specific sense, completely real. Have you ever been in paradise and still missed home, I know I have!

What I find most interesting about him is that he is not the greatest warrior in the room. That was always Achilles. Odysseus is the smartest person in the room, every room, and he knows it, and he uses it, and occasionally it gets him into trouble because being the smartest person in the room can make you careless about other people's feelings. The Cyclops episode is the perfect example. He blinds Polyphemus, escapes, and then cannot resist shouting his real name back across the water as he sails away. Pure ego. Completely unnecessary. It is the act that ensures Poseidon will spend the next several years trying to kill him.

He knows better. He does it anyway. That is Odysseus in one moment. Brilliant and human and his own worst enemy.

The Monsters

Let us talk about the monsters because they are extraordinary and because I think they are doing more work than they might first appear to be doing.

The Cyclops, Scylla and Charybdis, the Sirens, Circe who turns men into pigs, the Lotus Eaters who offer a forgetting so pleasant it becomes its own kind of death. Reading them in sequence you start to notice something. Every monster or obstacle on Odysseus's journey is, in some way, a version of the same temptation. Stop. Stay. Forget where you were going. The Lotus Eaters offer literal forgetting. Circe offers transformation into something that no longer needs to go home. Calypso offers immortality, actual immortality, eternal life in paradise, in exchange for giving up the idea of Ithaca entirely.

And Odysseus, to his immense credit and at enormous personal cost, keeps saying no. Not always immediately. Not always without considerable human weakness along the way. But eventually, always, no. He wants to go home more than he wants any of the things being offered to him. That is his defining characteristic and it is a more interesting one than brute strength or battlefield glory.

There is also the Sirens, which I want to single out because it is my favourite episode in the book. Odysseus knows the Sirens will lure him to his death if he hears them unprotected. So he has his crew plug their ears with wax and tie him to the mast, with instructions not to release him no matter what he does or says. And then he listens. He is the only human being in the story who hears the Sirens and survives. He hears them because he has built a system around his own weakness rather than pretending the weakness does not exist.

As a filmmaker and a writer I find that image endlessly useful. The man tied to the mast, experiencing the thing that would destroy him, surviving it precisely because he was honest enough about his own limits to plan around them. That is not just mythology. That is a philosophy of how to live with yourself.

Penelope

Penelope is one of the great characters in ancient literature and I want to say that plainly because she does not always get the recognition she deserves, which is frankly a pattern with the women in these epics and one I have noticed consistently throughout this challenge.

She has been waiting twenty years. Twenty years with no confirmation that her husband is alive, surrounded by suitors who are eating her out of house and home and pressuring her to choose one of them and move on. She has a son who was a baby when Odysseus left and is now a grown man trying to figure out who he is without a father. She is managing an entire household and a political situation of genuine complexity entirely alone.

And she is not passive. That is the crucial thing. The shroud she weaves for Laertes by day and unravels by night, buying herself time, is one of the great acts of quiet defiance in all of literature. She is outnumbered and outpowered and she is winning anyway, through patience and intelligence and an absolute refusal to give up on something that by any reasonable external measure she should have given up on years ago.

When Odysseus finally returns in disguise, she tests him. She has this stranger, who she does not know is her husband, describe the bed they shared. The bed that Odysseus built himself, around a living olive tree, so that it cannot be moved. Only Odysseus would know this. It is the most intimate possible proof of identity. After twenty years of waiting she does not simply throw herself into his arms. She makes him prove it.

That is not distrust. That is a woman who has survived twenty years by being careful and she is not stopping now just because she wants it to be him. The recognition scene between them is one of the most emotionally precise moments in the book and it belongs entirely to her intelligence.

Going Home

Here is the thing about the ending that I keep returning to. Odysseus gets home. He kills the suitors in a scene of considerable and deliberate violence. He reunites with Penelope. He goes to see his elderly father Laertes, who has been grieving him for twenty years, living rough in an orchard. He reclaims his kingdom.

And yet.

There is a quality to the ending of the Odyssey that is not quite triumphant in the way you might expect. Odysseus is home, but he is also, inescapably, changed. Like a post-university backpacker returning from a 6 week trip to Thai Land. “You haven’t seen what these eyes have seen!” The man who left for Troy was a king at the height of his powers with a young wife and a newborn son. The man who returns is someone who has spent twenty years being tested in ways that leave marks. He has seen the underworld. He has buried companions. He has spent years on an island weeping for a home that started to feel like a memory. You can get back to the place. You cannot entirely get back to who you were when you left it.

That is what the Odyssey is actually about and it is why it is still being read after three thousand years. Not the monsters. Not the gods interfering in human affairs. Not even the cunning of Odysseus, magnificent as that is. It is about the particular human experience of going away and coming back and finding that both you and the thing you came back to have moved in ways that do not perfectly align anymore. Home is still home. But it fits differently now.

I have never been away at war for twenty years. I suspect most of you reading this have not either. And yet there is something in that experience, that specific feeling of return and misalignment and love that persists anyway, that feels completely recognisable. That is what Homer understood and why this book belongs in a different category to almost everything that came after it.

What It Does That Nothing Else Does

I have now read the Gilgamesh, the Iliad, and the Odyssey in sequence on this challenge. And what strikes me most about the Odyssey is how modern it feels in comparison. Not modern in a superficial sense. Modern in its psychological understanding of a single human being. Gilgamesh is about an archetype confronting mortality. The Iliad is about collective human experience inside an institution of violence. The Odyssey is about one specific, complicated, contradictory man and his interior life across twenty years of trying to get back to the people he loves.

That is the novel. Not as a form that had been invented yet, but as an impulse. The sustained, intimate, psychologically curious examination of what it feels like to be one particular person navigating a world that keeps trying to stop them. Homer did it three thousand years ago and most of what has come since is, in one way or another, in conversation with it.

Legacy

The Odyssey's fingerprints are on everything. James Joyce spent seven years writing Ulysses, one of the most celebrated novels in the English language, as a direct structural parallel to the Odyssey set across a single day in Dublin. The Coen Brothers made O Brother Where Art Thou, one of my favourite films, as an Odyssey retelling set in 1930s Mississippi. Margaret Atwood wrote The Penelopiad to give Penelope her own voice. Every story about a long journey home, every story about a clever protagonist who survives by wit rather than strength, every story about what it costs to keep going when stopping would be so much easier, carries something of this book in its bones.

That is not influence in the academic sense. That is a story that understood something so true about human experience that it has never stopped being useful.