Storytelling was a widespread tradition throughout ancient Greece. Originally, mythical stories were told orally, then performed by playwrights at city festivals, until the ancient Greeks rediscovered the tool of the written word and Homer’s epics became quickly physical texts. The origins of lyric poetry may come from ancient Greece, being very instructive in modern understanding of the beliefs and customs of the early Greeks. Lyra, known as lyric poetry, has multiple forms. Perhaps most influential, however, are the archaic methods of storytelling seen in Homer’s epics.
Archaic lyric poetry is a narrative retelling of heroes and myths and was always created with the aim of teaching morals and beliefs to society. Undeniably, the most famous and best preserved poetry of the period was that of Homer, particularly his Iliad. Plato, a famous Athenian philosopher, would later tell us that Homer had acquired the reputation of being “the educator of all Greece”. Since the main form of education in ancient Greece took place through the teachings of playwrights, modern audiences can see how influential the classical figure of Homer was on the ancient Greeks and how true Plato’s expression is. Plato’s expression illustrates the impact Homer had not only in his own time, but also the long-lasting impact his work will have centuries after his death. This demonstrates how impactful the Iliad was for such a long time as a formative text for the ancient Greeks to learn sociocultural customs and beliefs.
Memory is an important theme explored in Homer’s Iliad. His epic poetry illustrates how people, their actions, and the past can be remembered, even commemorated. As an educator of the people, Homer illustrated his understanding of the influence of playwrights in teaching the polis in a section of the Iliad. Homer’s argument relied on an “inspiration from the Muses,” who were the daughters of Memory, and said that poetry can save the memories of the past – the people and events that happened. We know this because the Iliad was copied centuries after Homer’s death; it had become so memorable that people told these stories through the generations until they were written down between 750 and 700 BC (although the events of the Trojan War described in Homer’s epic originate of the Bronze Age). Homer said to the audience: “Muses, who have your abode on Olympus, for you are goddesses, omnipresent, and you know all things, and we only hear rumors and we know nothing. » In this long passage from the Iliad, the argument is illustrated that, thanks to the Muses, one could preserve the actions of the past. In other words, in the minds of the ancient Greeks, while those of today “only hear rumors”, the stories told by older generations are there to learn from, because “we don’t know anything either.”
Homer’s Iliad is not only revolutionary for its time, thanks to the introduction of the epic poem, but, from a modern perspective, it is highly influential in illustrating the nature of the archaic Greek world. Homer’s epic confronts the Trojan War. The audience is introduced to the heroic archetype of Achilles, a central figure in ancient Greek mythology, who demonstrates the sociocultural and political attitudes of the ancient Greeks. Achilles shows the audience a dilemma: whether to aim for a long and happy life without any respect for the afterlife or to die heroically as a young man and war hero. As an allegory, these central ideas are significant because they illustrate what the audience learns about the ancient Greek world through lyric poetry. The audience learns that the ancient Greeks placed great importance on the role of death and the afterlife within their society, particularly how the dead are remembered through the living.
The Trojan War is an important historical event during the ancient Greek era and has been continually mythologized by different cultures to illustrate strength and overcoming adversity. Homer’s poetry can explain to a large extent why the ancient Greeks considered the Trojan War such an important historical event. Homer’s specificity within the Iliad allows the audience to learn the ancient Greek collective sense of a collective identity. When the ancient Greeks faced times of crisis, the famous text became a unifying factor that signified the glory of the great Achilles. The spirit of Achilles in the Iliad, the audience learns, is used by all ancient Greeks to overcome war, suffering, and hardship. The mythologizing of the event helps the audience understand how the role of myth in changing history can be used to unify people in difficult times. The purpose was for the ancient Greeks to remember and commemorate their military victories in order to gain patriotism in order to die as heroes for their country. Homer in the Iliad even uses the event of the fall of Troy as an example to illustrate these attitudes: “a thing…whose glory will never perish (Homer, Iliad 2.324). » The Iliad’s theme that resounding fame achieved by dying as a young war hero would entitle you as an individual to be remembered in history, and for your community to honor and honor you to glorify as a hero, further demonstrates the extent of antiquity. The Greeks’ fixation on death and the afterlife and how this was impacted by memorialization as war heroes. Social status as a citizen in ancient Greece often depended on family history and how they were remembered. Homer uses the character of Odysseus to illustrate that the wrong action to take would be “shameful to wait a long time and in the end return home empty-handed (Homer, Iliad 2.297). »
Homer’s Iliad reveals much about the lives of the ancient Greeks, and the survival of the text for an extended period after its original conception demonstrates how memory was a vital belief and social custom of the ancient Greeks. Antiquity. The audience is also introduced to the hero archetype and how this manifests in a patriotic yet collective group when mythologizing is used in times of conflict to boost people’s morale. Finally, the audience is drawn to the concept of death and the afterlife and how Homer explores the concepts of memorialization and remembrance of the heroic archetype. Most importantly, the audience learns through Plato’s ideas about Homer as the “educator” of Greece. The argument that Virgil stole the Iliad to write the Aeneid about Roman history shows how vital the text is as a means of teaching vital social customs and beliefs to ordinary citizens.