Antiquitopia

The Iliad contains within it, I think, a very interesting, and perhaps psychologically sensitive, concept of the person, the self. It is a self that is composed of multiple elements that are divided against themselves. This divided self can be found in the formulae regarding internal deliberation--and I think it is significant that the Iliad actually has formulae of internal deliberation. The first type of formula has to do with the division within a particular element of the person: these elements include the heart, the mind, and the spirit. It first appears with regard to Achilleus in 1.188ff: So he spoke. And the anger ( achos ) came on Peleus' son, and within his shaggy breast the heart was divided two ways, pondering whether to draw from beside his thigh the sharp sword, driving away all those who stood between and kill the son of Atreus, or else to check the spleen within and keep down his anger ( cholos ). Now as he weighted in mind and spirit these two courses.... (tra...

Pathos is the moment in a great piece of literature, or film, etc., where you get that lump in your throat and a tug at your heartstrings. It is when a work elicits from the reader an overwhelming sense of compassion (in a way, anticipating and manipulating reader response). I have yet to read anyone who does this better than Homer (if there was a Homer). He does this in many ways. He tells us the back stories of each individual fighter who dies, whose family depends upon him and who will no longer be able to provide for them in death. Yet I think the most pathos-ridden passage is the one where Priam visits Achilleus in the latter's tent to beg for the return of Hektor's body. After kissing Achilleus' hand and supplicating at his knees, the great Priam, king of Troy, says: I have gone through what no other mortal on earth has gone through; I put my lips to the hands of the man who has killed my children. ( Il . 24.505-6). Now that's Pathos.

Repetition reverberates throughout world literatures. Repetition, repeating, sometimes verbatim, as often can be found in the Epic of Gilgamesh , or with slight variation in the retelling that gives subtle hints of shifting perspectives, which I would argue happens in the Iliad (e.g., when Achilles retells what happened in his argument with Agamemnon to his mother), is often one of the most illuminating aspects of literature. You can find it in biblical literature, near eastern literature, greek and roman literature, all the way to the present (Dadaism, anyone?). Repetition keeps track of time, creates rhythm, denotes emphasis, and provides ever-new perspective and, in fact, allows a text to comment on itself. So, I felt a certain resonance in my own experience of repetition when i read... ...if one does not perceive how a work repeats itself, the work is, almost literally, not perceptible and therefore, at the same time, not intelligible. It is the perception of repetitions that...

One of the themes I emphasized this last fall in my class is the use of deceit in literature. You can find it almost in any ancient document. It is rife in the Odyssey , Aeschylus' Oresteia , and perhaps most prominent in Genesis. You can find traces of it in the Iliad , in the Hymn to Demeter , and so on and so forth. It is probably the clearest common thread of mcuh of ancient literature. And...uh...modern behavior with all the recent scams and scandals in the news. But, we are not the only ones with the penchant for deceit. It turns out it is quite common in the animal world, particularly among other primates: In a comparative survey of primate behavior, Richard Byrne and Nadia Corp of the University of St. Andrews in Scotland found a direct relationship between sneakiness and brain size. The larger the average volume of a primate species’ neocortex — the newest, “highest” region of the brain — the greater the chance that the monkey or ape would pull a stunt like this one...

I have been immersed in the Odyssey as of late and probably will be for another week or so. I am teaching it directly after the Epic of Gilgamesh . Fitting, in some ways, since both feature a man who goes on many journeys, is, perhaps, "polutropos" or a man of "many ways" or "many turns." Yet, there is something else that has struck me in this reading of the Odyssey : the way the gods are depicted in contrast to how they are depicted in the Iliad . Take, for example, Odyssey 1.32-35: Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given, as now lately, beyond what is given.... Zeus is the one speaking to the assembled gods on Olympos. He is actually discussing the nostos, or return, of Agamemnon, in which he will be murdered by his wife and her lover and then avenged by his son. Yet, it has an interesting placement in the narra...

One thing that I thought about bringing up with my students, but ended up not looking at due to time constraints, is the famous "teichoskopia" or "view from the wall" scene in Iliad 3. There is a particular section here to which I keep returning in lines 172-80: Always to me, beloved father, you are feared and respected; and I wish bitter death had been what I wanted, when I came hither following your son, forsaking my chamber, my kinsmen, my grown child, and the loveliness of girls my own age. It did not happen that way: and now I am worn with weeping. This now I will tell you in answer to the question you asked me. That man is Atreus' son Agamemnon, widely powerful, at the same time a good king and a strong spearfighter, once my kinsman, slut that I am. Did this ever happen? The primary actors in this scene are Priam and Helen. Priam picks more outstanding figures from the Achaians and asks Helen who they are. Firstly, the Lord of Men, the Shepherd, the g...

As I continually reread and think through the Iliad as I teach it, I find myself continually stopped by a phrase, a word, or a paragraph here and there. Here are a few phrases that stopped me in my reading of the Iliad, Book 20, when Achilles (Achilleus) and Aineias are fighting (or giving speeches before they fight). First is Achilles to Aineias, telling him to step back for fighting Achilles in his godlike rage is not a clear-sighted moment for Aineias: "Once a thing has been done, the fool sees it." (20.198; trans. Lattimore) Achilles, who does seem to have a good grasp of future events (he knows his own death, for example), claims that even a fool can see in retrospect. The wise can see at least the immediate consequences of their actions. Then, Aineias, in response to all of the verbal exchange going back and forth before they begin to fight says something interesting: "The tongue of man is a twisty thing, there are plenty of words there of every kind, the range o...

Although the wrath of Achilles propels the plot of the Iliad , the Iliad is a poem of death. Because so many people die in the Iliad, I think it would be a rewarding exercise to go through and see how death is described. Outside of A killed B or A slayed B or rather straightforward terminology, death is emerges, floats about, darts here and there throughout the poem. Death often appears personified with a capital D. Death appears as an ever-present force lurking throughout the pages. It is the most powerful force for the mortal heroes, but it is also the most elusive. It is ever-present, but, as we shall see, it is a mist. It cannot be fully grasped even as it is ubiquitous. Once again, death, as a necessary prominent theme in a poem of war, appears right at the beginning. It is the result and necessary corollary to Achilles' wrath: Sing, goddess, the wrath of Peleus' son Achilleus and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians, hurled in their mult...

Wrath—one of the most famous first words in all of world literature. The word sets the pace, the tone, the content of the Iliad , shaping the plot of all there is to come. Wrath—Sing, Goddess, the wrath of Peleus’ son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion, feasts for the dogs and the birds, and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end. Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed, Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. (Iliad, 1.1-8; trans. Robert Fagles with some changes) The first word is menis . It is not just “anger” as the magisterial translation of Richmond Lattimore has rendered it. It is sustained anger, almost godlike in its intensity and singularity. Thus, Robert Fagles’ “rage” more clearly fits the bill. Yet I prefer the terminology of “wrath.” It reminds me of the wrath of God, which it ap...