Homer’s Iliad is so canonical in world literature that even without having read the epic, most people are familiar with the broad scenario of the Trojan war, triggered by the Trojan prince Paris’s abduction of the Greek beauty Helen, “the face that launched a thousand ships”.
However, the Iliad is hardly a romance. The abduction scene is only alluded to in the poem. The major theme is war, with the conflict approaching its tenth year.
