The Aspects of a Young Adult Novel in Homer's The Iliad (New Interpretive Viewpoint)

Tina Varga Oswald, Croatia, ID LLCE2016-337;        Next to Homer’s The Odyssey, there are few literary works in the history of world literature with such an impact, as his The Iliad. Later Greek literature, and Roman that followed, display conspicuous traces of that influence. Despite the fact that the Homer's epics were comprehensible to each Greek without any philological education, nearly thirty centuries later, and in quite a different surroundings and social circumstances, young readers face a challenge when it comes to the interpretation of their size, content, and meaning. Hence the need for a new interpretive point of view where the young reader has the ability to identify with the hero who is not only a fearless warrior, but who also becomes a social corrective upon completing his process of “maturing”. The Iliad offers the possibility of reading genre characteristics of a young adult novel on several levels: the first level relates to the organization of the narrative structure in two opposing groups with the standardized character of a leader, the second level deals with his characterization as a rebellious hero who opposes authority and is willing to accept the consequences which allow correction of the behavior, the third structural level covers a consideration of narrative techniques which indicate character’s psychological state and depiction of his inner nature, while the fourth level includes the didactic purpose of the text to the future generations, in other words reception.

Key words: Homer, The Iliad, young adult novel, reinterpretation.