Characteristics of the essay:

1. Ideally: brilliant. Certainly: thoughtful and thought-provoking.

2. Ideally: elegantly written. Certainly: clearly written, and without spelling, punctuation, or syntactical errors.

3. About 4 pages, double-spaced.

4. Turned in by class on Tuesday, September 22.

Before beginning the essay:

1. Read carefully my critique of the first, trial-run essay. Come see me if you have questions!

2. Make an outline of your thoughts.

3. Make sure your outline has a clear argument, and contains specifics from the text to back up that argument.

4. Make sure that you are convinced that your thoughts are interesting, exciting, provocative. (If you're not interested, how will you convince your reader?) Work hard to figure out a way of conveying this sense of an exciting discovery to your reader.

5. Enjoy! the process of thinking and writing about Homer. This is not a chore, but an important part of the discovery of your own thoughts and intellectual powers -- don't lose sight of that!

After writing the essay, but before turning it in:

1. Read the essay out loud to a friend, preferably someone in the class. You'll be surprised at how immediately you'll see problems in the wording from the act of reading it aloud to someone. As you read aloud, underline the sentences that seem awkward to you. Then revise.

2. Run a spell checker! Make sure also that you are spelling correctly Iliad (one el!), and the various difficult names like Agamemnon, Achilles, and so forth (consult the glossary at the back to double check this).

3. Make sure all quotations from the text are cited properly. For example, after quoting the first two lines of book one, you would add in parenthesis: (Iliad 1.1-2).

4. You are not asked to look at secondary sources for this essay. But if you do take ideas from others, you must cite your source in a footnote. (If you are uncertain how, or when, to do this, come talk to me.)

Essay Topics:

Write on one of the following topics. If you are burning to write on a different topic, that can probably be arranged, but you will need to clear the topic with me, and by next Friday.

For all of the following, it is important NOT TO TREAT THE TOPIC GENERALLY, BUT TO FOCUS ON SPECIFICS IN THE TEXT. REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE WRITING A FOUR PAGE ESSAY (not a book!). A good essay will usually be based on one passage, or a set of short passages, and will use the detailed interpretation of the text as the basis for broader conclusions.

1. The Iliad as a Religious Text. Investigate one sense in which the Iliad might properly be described as a religious text. For example, what religious impact might the Iliadbe said to have on the reader, ancient or modern? Be careful to define what you intend by the word "religious" for the purposes of your essay. Do not write generally about religion in the Iliad-- instead, focus on one aspect in which the poem may be said to contact the religious, and base your interpretation on a specific passage or set of passages.

2. The Nature of the Homeric Hero. Pick two of the main characters of the Iliad (male or female!), and use a comparison of these characters, or an analysis of the interaction between these characters, to investigate what it means, and does not mean, to be a Homeric "hero." What seems to define the nature of "heroism" within this society, and in what ways does the presentation of a given hero alter, or bring into question, the heroic ideal? You might, for instance, compare the idea of the hero represented by Hector with the presentation of his brother, Paris. Or you might focus on Hector, and ask what his interactions with his wife Andromache tell us about the nature of his male heroism. Or you might focus on the figure of Helen, and ask what her interactions with Paris and Hector tell us about the heroic society, and the role of the female in the construction of the hero. You will want, that is, to focus primarily on one figure, and use one or more interactions or contrasting figures to help analyze the nature of heroism. Be careful not to be too general: concentrate instead on one or two specific scenes in presenting your interpretation.

3. The Mythic Universe in the Iliad. Take one "mythological" element in the Iliad-- that is, one of the mythic stories, such as the tale of Bellerophon, or one of the mythic figures, such as one of the deities, or one of the more fantastic scenes, such as the Beguiling of Zeus (Book 14) -- and investigate how the backdrop of this fantastic world of myth operates in the poem. How does the mythic universe, that fantasy of gods and heroes, help in the development of one or more of the central themes of the epic? As always, remember to limit your focus: concentrate on the specifics of how one scene or theme or motif works within the epic.