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Analysis Of The Book ' The Iliad '

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Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achains,” (page 76 lines 1-7)This quote comes Richard Lattimore’s translated version of The Iliad, it tells the reader that Achilles is a man who is capable of great anger, anger that will kill thousands and bring much suffering. You wouldn’t think that a man like that would be able to feel anything but that anger, but in Christopher Logue’s War Music we see, “a naked man run with what seems to break the speed of light. Across the dry, then damp, then sand invisible. Beneath inch-high waves that slide. Over each other’s luminescent panes; Then kneel among those planes, burst into tears, and say: Mother.” (page 9) Here we get to see another side of Achilles that we wouldn’t see in The Iliad. War Music opens outside the text of The Iliad, giving us a cinematic look not only on Achilles, but on other scenes and situations, providing missing character depth, and asking questions The Iliad might not have. The perspective we got from Achilles in The Iliad is one of a great warrior, but in his rage abandons his comrades because his pride got hurt. His actions make him selfish and petty to the readers, but on pages 9-15 in War Music we get more character depth and perspective. In those few pages we see a man, one of history’s greatest heroes acting like a child. Achilles strips himself of his armor becoming vulnerable, powerless and runs crying to his mother, instead of
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