The Iliad and The Odyssey -- Homer

<p><strong><em>The Iliad</em></strong> and <strong><em>The Odyssey</em></strong> are the earliest works of Western literature and are the wellspring for much of Western culture. <strong><em>The Iliad</em></strong>, beginning</p><p>"Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles / and its devastation"</p><p>describes the devastation unleashed by Achilles's rage, engulfing soldier and civilian, hero and coward, ruler and slave and even women and children. It is a story of heroes of immense pride and animal strength operating in their element. But it is much more than a great war epic.</p><p>Homer creates complex human characters. A Greek and Trojan pair, Diomedes and Glaucus, meet on the battlefield, but realizing that they have an ancestral connection, they exchange conversation and armour rather than taunts and blows. King Priam kisses the hands of Achilles, saying "I have endured what no one on earth has endured. I have kissed the hands of the man who killed my son," an act which provokes deep sympathy in Achilles, who in turn returns the body of heroic Hector which he had defiled. The nearly invincible Ajax struggles to choose between heroic glory on the battlefield and the blessing of returning to the beloved land of his fathers. <em>The Iliad</em> is the story of the Trojan War, but much more: it has many tender scenes, it critiques the idea of the hero and it examines the role of the Gods in history.</p><p><strong><em>The Odyssey</em></strong><em>, </em> Homer's epic