Epic Features in the Iliad

The epic, in general, is a dignified narrative of a momentous theme of action

fulfilled by heroic characters and supernatural agencies under the control of a
sovereign destiny. The theme involves the political or religious interest of a people
or of a mankind. Through an epic generally has supernatural elements, epic is
about man and is addressed to men and the epic poet’s concern is with man’s
destiny, his past, his present and the future. Epics are generally classified into two
groups- the ‘ folk epics’ and the ‘literary epics’.The Ramayana,the Mahabharata,
and the Iliad and Odyssey belong to the former group which is also known as
primary epics. Virgil’s Aeneid, Dante’s Divine Comedy and Milton’s Paradise
Lost belong to the latter. The structure and themes of Homer's epic poem
the Iliad have become the exemplar for many of the subsequent epic poems in the
Western literary canon.

An epic usually begins in “media res”, a Latin phrase meaning "in the midst of
things." The Iliad opens in the final days of a decade-long war, in the
encampment of the Achaeans, who are suffering from a mysterious plague. Homer
provides no formal prologue explaining how and why the Achaeans have come to
this place, nor when the plague started, nor introductions of any characters. He
instead goes directly to the scene which catalyzes the action of the poem, the
argument between Achilles and Agamemnon:

“Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,

Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles”.
This is because epics weave together many elements of myth and folklore into a
larger narrative. The context that is missing from Homer's opening scene would
already have been known to his audience, in the same way that, for instance, the
legends of King Arthur or stories from the Bible are known to modern Western
audiences.

The natural and the supernatural together make up the setting of an epic, so that
the action in the story takes place not just on earth, but also in the heavens and the
underworld. In the Iliad, the events on the battlefield are often affected by the
events on Mount Olympus, and gods, demi-gods, nymphs, and nature spirits all
help and hinder the human characters in various ways throughout the poem.

Epic simile
 Epic simile is an extended simile, long enough to make the comparisons in
elaborate and considerable detail. It is a common feature of epic poetry and Homer
uses them in Book Two of the Iliad. In fact, in Book Two, Homer makes uses of
two epic similes, one is spoken by Odysseus in his speech to the Achaean soldiers
to raise their morale up an another to describe the effect of the speech upon the
Greek soldiers. Odysseus while addressing the soldiers recalls his experience of
making the sacrifice of making the sacrifice to the gods under a fine plane tree at
the foot of which the sparkling water was gushing out. He speaks;

“ A snake with blood red markings on its back, an intimidating creature

which Olympian Zeus himself had released into the light of the day, darted
out from below an altar and made straight for the tree. There was a brood of
young sparrows on the highest branch, helpless little things nestling under the
leaves –eight birds in all or nine counting the mother of the hatch. All of them
cheeping piteously and with their mother fluttering round and wailing for her
dear children were eaten by the snake”. Simile here is in the form of an anecdote
of metamorphosis and symbolic of things to come. The wise man Calchus
interpreted the omen as indicative of things to come for the Greeks. They are
symbolic,

“Nine then is the number of years we shall have to fight over ilium and in the
tenth its broad street will be ours”. The glory is late in coming and in fulfillment
but its glorious memory will not die. The inspired Greeks thundered out loud and
like a wave against the rocky promontory of a high headland when the south wind
descends and whips up the seas. Towards the end of the Book Two , Homer
compares the dazzling glitter of the magnificent bronze armour of the armies of the
Achaeans to a destructive fire ravaging a great forest on the mountain heights and
the glint of the flames there of . Homer then brings in the comparisons to the many
flocks of birds ---geese, cranes of long necked swans—that gather in the Asian
meadow by the streams of Cayster. The simile is no more ornamental and the
image s Homer evokes are those of the everyday. We move from the terrible scene
of army preparing for war to bees at springtime, and Homer is content to say for a
moment with the bees, developing that imagery for its own sake. These similes
together often present glimpses of a peaceful and harmonious world. Homer often
uses them to provide powerful contrast to the brutality of the Trojan War,
juxtaposing images of violence with images of peace.

The main characters of an epic are larger than life, sometimes of divine or
otherwise supernatural parentage, and often possessed of superhuman abilities.
Main character in the Iliad, Achilles, is the son of a mortal king Peleus and Thetis,
a sea-goddess. He is the pre-eminent warrior of all the Achaeans, referred to as
"brilliant," "godlike," and "swift-footed. The Iliad concerns with the rage of
Achilles ,how it begins,how it cripples the Achaean army and how it finally
becomes redirected towards the Trojans. The poem describes neither the origins
nor the the end of the war that frames Achilles’s wrath . Instead, it scrutinizes the
origins and the end of his wrath , thus narrowing the scope of the poem from a
larger conflict between warring peoples to a smaller one between warring
individuals. The rage is invoked by pride, a theme of pivotal importance for the
Greeks. Pride is the source of the conflict between Achilles and Agamemnon in
Book One .

The structure of an epic poem is a key aspect of what makes it an epic. Epics often
contain epithets, descriptive phrases attached to specific people, places, or things.
These were used as mnemonics by poets in the oral traditions from which the Iliad
arose, and the Iliad is full of them. Examples include "gray-eyed Athena," "rosy-
fingered Dawn" “Zeus of the lightning bolt,". Epics also tend to contain long
similes describing people, places, or things; Digressions into personal histories,
genealogies, and related myths are also part of the fabric of an epic, enriching the
main narrative with a large amount of background information.

The main function of poetry in heroic age society was to stir the spirit of warriors
to heroic actions by praising their exploits and those of their illustrious ancestors
by assuring a long and glorious recollection of their fame and by supplying them
with models of heroic behaviour. Today, we live in an unheroic age which is more
used to introspection than action . Living within the hell of consciousness, modern
man struggles within. In this age of ‘cowardice’ man can only think and make a
journey of the mind. But, this does not mean that epic poetry has ceased to attract
us. Epic heroes will always remain a constant source of entertainment and continue
to remind us of our noble ancestry.

Prof. Harisadhan Ghosh