IGX

The passage is an early example of ecphrasis (a literary description of a work of visual art) and influenced many later poems, including The Shield of Heracles once attributed to Hesiod.[2]. Virgil's description of the shield of Aeneas in Book Eight of the Aeneid is clearly modelled on Homer.[1] The poem The Shield of Achilles (1952) by W. H. Auden reimagines Homer's description in 20th century terms.

The Shield of Achilles can be read in a variety of different ways. One interpretation is that the shield is simply a physical encapsulation of the entire world. The shield’s layers are a series of contrasts – i.e. war and peace, work and festival, although the presence of a murder in the city at peace suggests that man is never fully free of conflict. Wolfgang Schadewaldt, a German writer, argues that these intersecting antitheses show the basic forms of a civilized, essentially orderly life[3]. This contrast is also seen as a way of making “us…see [war] in relation to peace[4]." The shield’s description falls between the fight over Patroclus’ body and Achilles’ reentry into battle, the later being the impetus to one of the poem’s bloodiest parts. Consequently, the shield could be read as a “calm before an impending doom,” used to emphasize the brutality of violence during the Trojan War. It could also be read as a reminder to the reader of what will be lost once Troy ultimately falls[5]. Of course, there is thought that it could be the reverse. It is not so much what will be lost, as what will be gained; fighting so he doesn't have to fight again.