What epic elements do you find in Homer's Iliad?

Your technique for working on this assignment should begin with a review of your class notes on the nature of epic. Next, you should make a list of those things which your instructor says are characteristic of epic. As you read Homer, you can then note down occurrences of those elements. The most popular book of the Iliad in antiquity was Book 2, and it displays many of the traditional epic elements.

First, the Iliad was written in dactylic hexameter, the traditional meter of Greek epic. It uses epic epithets, descriptive formulae repeated in fixed metrical positions. It shows some elements of formular economy, where only a limited number of epithets applicable to an individual noun can be found in a specific metrical position. Epithets reflect the characteristic of the person being described rather than the specific situation, as when the epithet "laughing" is applied to Aphrodite when she is crying.

The Iliad is typical of the epic genre in its depiction of nobles and heroes engaged in agonistic behavior. It incorporates and passes down many of the important traditions and customs of the culture in which it was composed. It displays homeostasis in, for example, the incorporation of archaic military technology into a Mycenaean setting.