The Iliad | Style

The Iliad Style

Since it is the first work in its genre to have survived, the Iliad does not so much display the mechanics of epic poetry as define them. Epic poetry in the West was written in virtually in the same form as the Iliad for at least 500 years, and the modifications that were later made tended to be minor.

Meter

English meter involves patterns of stressed and unstressed syllables. Greek meter, on the other hand, involves patterns of long and short syllables in which, as a general rule, two short syllables equal one long syllable. Greek poetry does not rhyme, although it uses of alliteration and assonance (repeated use of the same or similar consonant patterns and vowel patterns, respectively).

The Iliad is written in dactylic hexameters, which is the "standard" form for epic poetry: in fact, this particular meter is sometimes referred to as...
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