Trojan War in popular culture

The pre-war episodes of Leda and the Swan and the Judgement of Paris were frequent subjects in art from the Renaissance onwards.

• Laocoön, c.1610-1614, a painting by El Greco. from The National Gallery of Art
• Helen of Troy by Evelyn De Morgan

Innumerable ancient items, including:

• the Trojan War was a classic subject for the Pottery of ancient Greece (for example see the potter Exekias and certain bands of the François Vase).
• the Mykonos vase, pottery depiction of the Trojan war and horse

• the Medici Vase
• Laocoön and his Sons
• A marble sarcophagus believed to date back to the second century and unearthed at the northwestern Turkey, is depicting in one side heroes of the Trojan War, like the Agamemnon and the Achilles.[1]

• the Iliad and Odyssey of Homer
• other poems in the Epic Cycle (all lost):
  • the Kypria, attributed to Stasinos of Cyprus
  • the Aithiopis
  • the Little Iliad
  • the Iliou Persis ("Sack of Troy")
  • the Nostoi ("Returns")
• several poems by Stesichorus, Alcaeus, and Sappho
• numerous plays, mostly tragedies of which the extant ones are:
  • by Aeschylus:
    • Agamemnon
    • Libation Bearers
  • by Sophocles:
    • Ajax
    • Philoctetes
    • Electra
  • by Euripides:
    • Iphigenia at Aulis
    • Trojan Women
    • Hecuba
    • Andromache
    • Helen
    • Electra
    • Orestes
    • Iphigenia in Tauris
    • Cyclops
  • of disputed authorship (traditionally attributed to Euripedes):
    • Rhesus
• the Heroicus by Philostratus the Elder (3rd century)
• the Capture of Troy by Triphiodorus
• the Posthomerica by Quintus of Smyrna (4th century AD)

• the Aeneid by Virgil (book 2)
• the Metamorphoses by Ovid (books 12-14)
• the Heroides By Ovid (I, III, V, VII)
• the Double Heroides By Ovid (XVI & XVII)
• the Ephemeris, purporting to be by Dictys of Crete
• the Fall of Troy, purporting to be by Dares of Phrygia
• the Achilleis by Statius

• Roman de Troie by Benoît de Sainte-Maure (ca. 1160), derived from Dictys and Dares.
• De bello Troiano by Joseph of Exeter (1183-4)
• Historiae destructionis Troiae by Guido delle Colonne (1287), derived from Benoît.
• Il filostrato by Boccaccio, derived from Benoît and Guido.
• Troilus and Criseyde by Geoffrey Chaucer, a poem in rhyme royal telling a tragic love story set during the war; derived from the above works.
• The Rawlinson Excidium Troie
• The Seege of Troye, a Middle English poem based on "Dares" and Benoît.
• The Laud Troy Book, another Middle English poem, written about 1400.
• Troy Book by John Lydgate, a Middle English poem composed 1412–20.

• Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye, published in 1474, the first printed book to be published in English, containing Caxton's translation of Raoul le Fevre's work, in turn derived from Guido and, ultimately, Benoît.
• Christopher Marlowe's The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, written circa 1590, features Helen of Troy.
• Troilus and Cressida, William Shakespeare's dark interpretation of Chaucer's story, derived from Caxton's Recuyell written in 1602.
• Penthesilea play by Heinrich von Kleist, 1808.
• Faust, Part 2 by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe published in 1832 features Helen of Troy.
• Several poems by William Butler Yeats make reference to the Trojan War or Troy in the context of the Trojan War.
  • No Second Troy, published in 1910
  • A Man Young and Old VI, published in 1928
  • Leda and the Swan, published in 1928
• The Trojan War Will Not Take Place, play by Jean Giraudoux, written in 1935.
• Paris of Troy by George Baker, published in 1947 (originally published as Fidus Achates 1944)
• Kassandra by Christa Wolf, published in 1983.
• The Greek Generals Talk (1986) and The Trojan Generals Talk collections of short stories by Phillip Parotti.
• Cassandra: Princess of Troy by Hilary Bailey published in 1993.
• Women of Destiny: A Story of the Trojan War by Clemence McLaren published in 1996.
• The Song of Troy by Colleen McCullough published in 1998.
• The Nantucket series by S. M. Stirling involves a time-travelling American adventurer overthrowing Agamemnon and proceeding to himself conquer and destroy Troy, in a manner quite different from that depicted by Homer. (Published 1998-2000)
• Achilles by Elizabeth Cook published in 2002.
• The Songs of the Kings by Barry Unsworth, published in 2002.
• Ilium by Dan Simmons, published in 2003, gives the story of Troy a science fiction twist.
• The Siege of Troy by Greg Tobin published in 2004.
• The Talisman of Troy: A Novel by Valerio Massimo Manfredi published in 2004.
• Lindsay Clarke's Troy series:
  • The War at Troy, published in 2004.
  • Return from Troy, published in 2005.
• War Music by Christopher Logue, a Modernist retelling of books 1 - 8 and 16 - 19 of Homer's Iliad, published between 1959 and 2005.
• Gene by Stel Pavlou, published in 2005, is the story of a soldier from the Trojan War reincarnated seven times through history.
• The Memoirs of Helen of Troy by Amanda Elyot published in 2005.
• David Gemmell's Troy Series:
  • Troy: Lord of the Silver Bow, published in 2005.
  • Troy: Shield of Thunder, published in 2006.
  • Troy: Fall of Kings, published in 2008.
• Helen of Troy by Margaret George, published in 2006.
• The Rage of Achilles by American author Terence Hawkins is an account of the Iliad in the form of a novel, informed by Julian Jaynes' theory of bicameralism, in which modern consciousness arose at about the time of the Trojan War. Published in 2009.
• The Song of Achilles, by Madeline Miller, published in 2012 is a retelling of the stories surrounding the Trojan War from the point of view of Patroclus, who the story presents as the lover of Achilles.
• Ransom, by David Malouf, published in 2009, is a retelling of the Iliad, from books 22 to 24. It tells the story of Priam as he goes to Achilles to plead for the return of the body of Hector.
• The Lost Books of the Odyssey, by Zachary Mason, published in 2010, is a creative retelling of the adventures of Odysseus, king of Ithaca, told from the perspective of (mostly) the antagonists of Odysseus, e.g. Polyphemus, Circe, and Penelope.
• The Silence of the Girls, by Pat Barker published in 2018 is a retelling from the point of view of Briseis.