DUE TUE, 2/13 - Iliad notes

The Iliad Assignment:

Read the next three stanzas from where we left off in Book One, “The Rage of Achilles.”

That’s line 38 to line 77 on pages 78 – 79. If you don’t understand it the first time, try reading it a second time, slowly and carefully.

If you have not done so already, start a reading notes section in your Humanities binder for The Iliad. In your reading notes you should indicate the Book number (in this case it’s Book One), the due date of the assignment, and the pages and lines. You can post this on your blog also, but it is not required. It will be much easier to keep track of your Iliad notes in a binder than dispered thorughout your blog.

In your reading notes for today’s reading you should:

1. Summarize with one or two quick bullet points per stanza - ones that you will be able to understand when you read your notes later.

2. Ask questions about the reading from one or more stanzas

3. Predict what will happen next

Reading Hint: Phoebus Apollo is the god Apollo’s full name, so don’t let the Phoebus throw you off. The god Apollo is obviously an important player in the early part of the epic and is one of the most powerful of the Greek gods. He was the god of reason, prophecy, music, light and plague. For more on Apollo you can follow this link:

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/a/apollo.html

If you have a hard time “getting” the second stanza of today’s reading, try to look at it figuratively instead of literally and see if the next stanza helps you understand. Homer uses an “extended metaphor” in today’s reading – that’s a metaphor that lasts for more than one sentence or that reoccurs throughout the work. I at least like to think of it as a metaphor, but some ancient Greeks might have taken it literally. The use of figurative language in Homer can sometimes be a stumbling block for reading comprehension. Once you feel more comfortable with it the easier the reading becomes, like with Fahrenheit 451.

Mr. J