Buy essay on Homer’s Iliad and The Shield of Achilles by Auden

“The Shield of Achilles” by Wystan Hugh Auden was written as a response to famous Iliad by Homer. The poem speaks about different episodes from the life of Achilles, the main character of Iliad.
Auden’s poem consists of two stanza forms. The author uses rhythm and size in order to pass his ideas to the audience. The shorter stanzas of the poem describe different scenes of ancient life which were supposed to be on the shield.
Nereid Thetis, Achilles’ mother expects to find different scenes of happy life engraved on the shield:
She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,
Auden makes the description of these scenes but finally it turns out that they were not engraved on the shield. The longer stanzas show scenes from modern life and describe different scenes of cruelty and atrocity. In stead of the perfect and idealistic landscape the Nereid Thetis see strange pictures of the contemporary life.
A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign (Auden)
The author uses the theme of ancient Homer’s Iliad in order to speak about the violence and brutality of the modern world. The author uses contrast in order to express his idea to the readers. He uses an episode from ancient poem Iliad by Homer in order to speak about the problems of the contemporary society. Different sizes of stanzas are used to create additional contrast between idealistic pictures presented by Homer and between the pictures of the real world engraved by Hephaestus.
Auden does not name the characters in the beginning of the poem. He speaks about men who makes the shield and women who observes his work. The author gives their names only in the last stanza but the readers can get an idea about the meaning of the scene because of the name of the poem. Auden names the characters only in the last lines of the poem, but the context and the name of the poem give the readers understanding about the historical references of the poem.
Despite both poems, Iliad by Homer and The Shield of Achilles by Auden speak about the war, the meaning of warfare and approach to it are very different. Homer speaks about Achilles and his great deed for the sake of his motherland and his people. Achilles is depicted like a hero who becomes the object of praise and admiration. The warfare is described by Homer as a place where people got the chance to fight for the things they loved and to protect things that were dear for them.
The picture of warfare created by Auden is absolutely different. He speaks about impersonal character of the war. People who fight do not know the goal of their actions, they do not have choice and do not understand the meaning of warfare:
Out of the air a voice without a face
Proved by statistics that some cause was just
In tones as dry and level as the place:
No one was cheered and nothing was discussed (Auden).
In his Iliad Homer center on strong characters which determine the result of the war. Achilles is describe by Homer as a strong personality with high moral position and good physical abilities. Achilles is a strong leader and people count on him. Moreover, even enemies respect Achilles. In Auden’s poem the situation is different. He shows that people who take part in the war are deprived of their personalities. The author does not speak about individuals but rather presents them as a group of people.
Column by column in a cloud of dust
They marched away enduring a belief
Whose logic brought them, somewhere else, to grief (Auden).
Two pictures of warfare presented by Homer and Auden are very different. Homer center on individuals and their great deeds, while Auden describes the picture of destruction and indifferent attitude to those who take part in war. Homer depicts war as a chance of warriors to defend their land and their people. In Auden’s poem the picture of war is different. He describes it like aimless actions which bring grief and destruction to people.
Homer and Auden describe two different worlds and two different systems of values. In Auden’s poem people know no mercy or compassion. As he writes:
That girls are raped, that two boys knife a third,
Were axioms to him, who’d never heard
Of any world where promises were kept,
Or one could weep because another wept.
The life in the world of future sounds like a terrible nightmare. People kill each other without a considerable reason and do not feel any guilt for it. In Homer’s Iliad human values are not neglected even during the war. People care about needs and feelings of other people. In Homer’s Iliad people remember about compassion and justice. Two different worlds and value system are opposed to each other. The contrast is underlined by the mixture of pictures from two different world which present two different way of life and two different types of relations. In Homer’s world warfare was a style of life and in many cases people had to fight in order to survive. At the same time they did not became cruel and heartless. Human characteristics are peculiar to all Homer’s main characters. His characters are generous, clever and brave. They mind the needs and problems of other people and they are always ready to help those who are in need. Auden creates a terrible picture of the world where all needs are desires of people are suppressed. People do not care about each other and they know no mercy.
The poem has several levels of meaning. From the one side it describes a contrast between the world of Homer and present life and at the same time is shows different manifestations of war. By doing this the author shows that event the best intentions and the most generous motifs can not justify warfare. The world of Homer is closely interconnected with the cruel world where people are murder without reason. Achilles’ mother wants to know about the glorious deeds when she asks to make a shield for her son. Hephaestus shows her the picture of murder and destructions in return. From the one side the author contrasts two worlds, but from the other side he parallels them. Auden points out that warfare always brings grief and destruction and people should remember about this every time they start making an armor.

 
Works Cited
Auden, The Shield of Achilles

Homer, The Iliad trans. E.V. Rieu, Penguin Classics, 1950.