Iliad ad Nihilum: Psychê, Conscience, Wonder

Achilles, paragon of aristocratic valor, an “idol of idiot worshippers,” as Shakespeare’s Thersites soliloquizes? The Renaissance bard’s Troy story, his much disregarded Troilus and Cressida, has long baffled readers; why would Shakespeare satirize the noble epic tradition, the ‘divine’ Homer? The answer: Shakespeare’s parody of Achilles’ tale pays homage to The Iliad, itself already a parody of the traditional tale its author inherited. Shakespeare engages the author of The Iliad, not in a...