An Ecocritical Reading of the Homeric Iliad

Bibliographic Data

ID21722364
AuthorsEdith Hall (0000-0002-8438-6814, Durham University, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume29
Issue2
Pages112-126
Publication date2025-04-03
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGreen Letters (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1468-8417 • E-ISSN: 2168-1414
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/14688417.2025.2548508
OpenAlexW4413298777
LanguageEN
References cited19

The Homeric Iliad is one of the oldest Greek epic poems, and its celebration of heroic Bronze-Age warfare around Troy in what is now Northwestern Turkey, entailing colossal consumption of natural resources, has exerted an incalculable influence on later culture. This article examines the idiom of limitlessness and the evocation of cavalier exploitation of nature that suffuse the entire poem, with a focus on timber and deforestation. Trees, especially the pines of Mount Ida, are cut down in their thousands to provide wood for watch fires, animal sacrifice, habitations and military operations. The poem’s obsession with metallurgy, especially bronze arms and armour and Hephaestus’ forge, obscures and massive deforestation required to fuel the furnaces in which metal was processed. Similes and Achilles’ fight with the River Scamander evoke yet further destruction of forests. Homer’s heroes know limits to the timber with which Earth could supply them

Art · Linguistics · Literature · Ancient Near East History · Classical Antiquity Studies · Philosophy

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