Death of Ivan Ilych and The Iliad Certain works of literature have been judged by posterity as being “great.” These books are extremely different, both in context and content, as they describe different cultures, different eras and different value systems. However, they all have one common factor, which is that they all tell the reader something important about the human condition. No matter how different cultures are, all human beings are faced with knowledge of their mortality. Therefore, they all search for meaning in life, which, quite often, relates to finding meaning in death. This essay describes why Tolstoy‟s The Death of Ivan Ilych and Homer‟s Iliad are great works and what lessons we can learn from reading these books. Homer‟s ancient Greek epic poem the Iliad begins by conjuring images of the Trojan War, a conflict that has been raging between Greece and the city of Troy for ten years prior to the poem‟s narrative. The poem‟s subject is not the war, per se, but rather the actions of two Greek leader, Agamemnon, the leader of the Greek army, and his key warrior, Achilles. The two leaders quarrel over who has a greater claim to a captive Trojan woman. Achilles tells Agamemnon, "'What a worthless, burnt-out coward I'd be called/ if I would submit to you and all your orders,/whatever you blurt out. Fling them at others/ don't give me commands!" (Homer Bk. 1, lines 342-346). Eventually, Achilles surrenders the woman to his commander, but withdraws from the battlefield, refusi