The Iliad (Summarized Edition)

The Iliad condenses the Trojan War into a searing chronicle of a few weeks, governed by the catastrophic rage of Achilles and the fragile negotiations of honor. Composed in rolling dactylic hexameter, it fuses aristeiai, duels, councils, and funeral rites with a vivid divine machinery and far-ranging similes that place bronze-age combat within a cosmic ecology. Its formulaic diction, epithets, and...