"Thecentral image of Homer's great epic story of the wrath of Achilles," Atchity writes in his Introduction to this brilliant new study of the poem's structure, "is the invulnerable shield made for the poem's hero at the Olympian forge of Hephaistos." Atchity's subsequent revelation of the imagery as the guiding aesthetic provides a complete interpretation of the Iliad from the viewpoint of image and theme. The major...