This investigation started with a question: Why does Shakespeare hate the Iliad?
The question arose after first reading Troilus and Cressida (T&C), Shakespeare's play set during the Trojan War. In his retelling, all claims to glory for Homer's heroes are undermined; a world that is presented by Homer as brutal but honorable is replaced, by Shakespeare, with one that is rife with social and physical disease. As I continued to consider why Shakespeare displayed such hostility toward the Iliad, I found myself recognizing multiple, much more subtle, allusions to the Trojan War in another of his plays set in ancient Greece, The Comedy of Errors (COE). In time, it became apparent that the connection of these two plays with each other, and with the Iliad, was deliberate; through this comparison, Shakespeare rejects the Homeric ethos in favor of a Christian one. A consideration of René Girard's...
