One of the many things I love about St. John’s College is that everyone must begin with Homer—and not only Homer, but the Iliad. It’s not just that this happens to have been my favorite book for most of my life.
Homer is arguably both the first and the best of poets. In “Of the Most Outstanding Men,” Montaigne wrote this about Homer:
It was against the order of nature that he created the most excellent production that can be. For things at birth are ordinarily imperfect; they gain size and strength as they grow. He made the infancy of poetry and of several sciences mature, perfect and accomplished. For this reason he may be called the first and last of poets.
There is also something glorious about undertaking your studies at this particular beginning, because the Iliad takes hold of the imagination from its first line, when it sweeps the reader into the Achaean camps, to face the towering figure of Achilles: “Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses.” The images and the pace of the poetry appear to be artless, yet they are commanding.
The Iliad has a kind of immediacy you will find nowhere else. It has irresistible momentum. It grabs you in the middle, somewhere in the vicinity of the chest or the heart, and it demands the attention of your sensibility.
Consider the size of the heroes
