Homer's Iliad Explained: Books 6–12

This video works through seven of the richest books in Homer's Iliad: Hector's farewell to Andromache and Astyanax, the formal duel between Hector and Ajax, Zeus's intervention on the battlefield, the embassy to Achilles and his refusal to return to the war, the disputed Doloneia, Agamemnon's brief aristeia, and the Trojan breach of the Achaean wall.

The embassy in Book 9 gets the most attention here. Achilles's response to Odysseus, Phoenix, and Ajax is one of the most searching passages in the whole poem, and it's worth sitting with properly rather than rushing past on the way to the next battle scene.

This lecture is produced for The Hallett Review, a humanities publication and lecture platform covering literature, classics, philosophy, and history.

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