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No story in our culture, with the possible exception of the Old Testament and the story of Jesus Christ, has inspired writers and painters over the centuries more than the Trojan War. It was the fundamental narrative in Greek education (especially in the version passed down by Homer, which covers only a small part of the total narrative), and all the tragedians whose works survive wrote plays upon various aspects of it, and these treatments, in turn, helped to add variations to the traditional story. No one authoritative work defines all the details of the story outlined above.
Unlike the Old Testament narratives, which over time became codified in a single authoritative version, the story of the Trojan War exists as a large collection of different versions of the same events (or parts of them). The war has been interpreted as a heroic tragedy, as a fanciful romance, as a satire against warfare, as a love story, as a passionately anti-war tale, and so on. Just as there is no single version which defines the "correct" sequence of events, so there is no single interpretative slant on how one should understand the war. Homer's poems enjoyed a unique authority, but they tell only a small part of the total story.
The following notes indicate only a few of the plays, novels, and poems which have drawn on and helped to shape this ancient story.
The most famous Greek literary stories of the war are Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, our first two epic poems, composed for oral recitation probably in the eighth century before Christ. The theme of the Iliad is the wrath of Achilles at the action of Agamemnon, and the epic follows the story of Achilles's withdrawal from the war and his subsequent return (see paragraphs 11, 12, 13, and 14 above). The Odyssey tells the story of the return of Odysseus from the war (see 20 above). A major reason for the extraordinary popularity and fecundity of the story of the Trojan War is the unquestioned quality and authority of these two great poems, even though they tell only a small part of the total narrative. The Iliad was the inspiration for the archaeological work of Schliemann in the nineteenth century, a search which resulted in the discovery of the site of Troy at Hissarlik, in modern Turkey.
The Greek tragedians, we know from the extant plays and many fragments, found in the story of the Trojan War their favourite material, focusing especially on the events after the fall of the city. Aeschylus's famous trilogy, The Oresteia (Agamemnon, Choephoroi [Libation Bearers], and Eumenides [The Kindly Ones]), tells of the murder of Agamemnon and Cassandra by Clytaemnestra and Aegisthus, the revenge of Orestes, and the trial for the matricide. Both Sophocles and Euripides wrote plays about Electra, and Euripides also wrote a number of plays based on parts the larger story The Trojan Women, The Phoenissae, Orestes, Helen, and Iphigeneia in Tauris (see 21 and 22 above). Sophocles also wrote Philoctetes (see 16) and Ajax (see 15) on events in the Trojan War.
Greek philosophers and historians used the Trojan War as a common example to demonstrate their own understanding of human conduct. So Herodotus and Thucydides, in defining their approach to the historical past, both offer an analysis of the origins of the war. Plato's Republic uses many parts of Homer's epics to establish important points about political wisdom (often citing Homer as a negative example). Alexander the Great carried a copy of the Iliad around with him in a special royal casket which he had captured from Darius, King of the Persians.
The Romans also adopted the story. Their most famous epic, Virgil's Aeneid, tells the story of Aeneas (see 23). And in the middle ages, the Renaissance, and right up to the present day, writers have retold parts of the ancient story. Odysseus (Ulysses) and Diomedes appear in Dante's Inferno. Of particular note are Chaucer's and Shakespeare's treatments of the story of Troilus and Cressida. Modern writers who have drawn on the literary tradition of this ancient cycle of stories include Sartre (The Flies), O'Neill (Mourning Becomes Electra), Giradoux (Tiger at the Gates), Joyce (Ulysses), Eliot, Auden, and many others. In addition, the story has formed the basis for operas and ballets, and the story of Odysseus has been made into a mini-series for television.
For the past two hundred years there has been a steady increase in the popularity of Homer's poems (and other works dealing with parts of the legend) translated into English. Thus, in addition to the various modern adaptations of parts of the total legend of the Trojan war, the ancient versions are still very current.
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