“The Triumph of Achilles” has 20 lines broken into five stanzas. It is a free-verse poem because the lines and stanzas vary in length, and there is no rhyme scheme. Gluck’s poem focuses on Homer’s Iliad, specifically the story of Achilles and Patroclus. When read together, the poem reveals irony in the title. Achilles is a great warrior who kills many soldiers, but he loses his loved one—Patroclus—and his own life in the course of the Trojan War. This makes his “triumph” a tragic one.

The first stanza establishes both the irony of Gluck’s title and the tragedies within Homer’s Greek epic the Iliad. There are many stories in the Iliad, but the first line of Gluck’s poem clearly defines the focus of the poem: “the story of Patroclus” (Line 1). The poem does not relay all of the details or plot points from Homer’s story of Patroclus and Achilles, but instead uses allusions. This demonstrates how Gluck trusts the reader to have some knowledge of the famous epic poem. Homer’s poem is a starting point for delving into the larger emotional resonance of losing a loved one.

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