Tom dismisses one of the world’s greatest epics, a 3,000 year old classic of war, on the grounds that its heroes cannot be verified and nor did they even use cannon. Pitiful. Unlike the Duke of Wellington, alive and well in Tom’s time and in full possession of the latest in artillery.

A Boy’s Own perspective on life.

‘… much more interesting to Tom than Philip’s stories out of the Iliad; for there were no cannon in the Iliad, and, besides, Tom had felt some disgust on learning that Hector and Achilles might possibly never have existed. But the Duke of Wellington was really alive…’

If you, like Tom, consider the Iliad to be dépassé and irrelevant, see our review of The Mighty Dead: Why Homer Matters or of Christopher Logue’s pulsating rendition of several books of the Iliad.

Source: George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (London: Oxford University Press, 1963), p. 182

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