''The very first word in the history of Western literature is “rage” or
“wrath.” For that is how Homer’s “Iliad” begins. Composed some time in
the eighth century B.C., it starts with a call to the Muse, the goddess
of inspiration, to help tell the story of the “wrath” of Achilles (menin
in the original Greek) — and of the incalculable sorrows and the
terrible deaths of so many brave warriors that this wrath caused.
Homer’s epic, set during the mythical war between Greeks and Trojans, is
as much about anger, private vendetta and its fatal consequences as it
is about heroic combat and the clash of two ancient superpowers. What
happens, the poem asks, when your best warrior is so furious at a
personal insult that he withdraws from the war and simply refuses to
fight? What are the costs, to use the modern coinage, of “Achilles
sulking in his tent”?..
read more.. read first chapter..
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