Iliad 2nd lit Flashcards
Agamemnon
Cruelty - Edwards, ‘his tone is bullying and unnecessarily brutal, combining disregard for Chyses’ suppliant status, his old age, his sacred office, and his feelings of a father…in a very few lines he has defied both the proper way to behave and the will of the people for which he is responsible’. P.Jones, ‘already Agamemnon is sketched as a leader of no judgement, at odds with his army…and a bully’
Concern w/ status - Rutherford, ‘Homeric society is a shame, not a guilt culture…homeric heroes are indeed alert to loss of face, and this motivates many of the most important decision in the poem’. Dodds, ‘the primary source of morality in that society was what others said and thought of you rather than a self-conscious assessment of the moral rightness’
Imprudence in handling Ach - Edwards, points out that Ad made a series of mistakes- not ignoring Ach’s truculence and insisting on taking his prize. He could’ve handled the situation much better’
Cruelty/hatred of Trojans - Mueller, ‘the Iliadic Agamemnon may not be cruel by nature but we discover in his portrayal the theme of the brutalizing force of a moral mission’
Excuse for his actions - Mueller, ‘Agamemnon doesn’t evade liability but it is remarkable that he should find it necessary to say with such emphasis: ‘It was not my fault’. The fact of denial proves it was possible to say ‘It was my fault’
War & heroism
Heroic values - Donlan, ‘commitment to competing, winning and showing that you had won perhaps by displaying the opponents armour’. Cairns, ‘the hero’s natural desire for the honour and status to be gained by winning, and his obligation to others to cooperate with them and ensure that their honour’s not compromised by his search for his own’.
Heroism - Donlan, ‘death is inescapable and final…certain acts, especially those that risk or incur death, can achieve the glory that outlives finite life’
Honour - Donlan, ‘it sometimes conquers death and recompenses a hero for his mortality’
Warfare - Kirk, ‘five basic elements to homeric battle: mass combat, individuals in combat, speeches, similes, and divine interventions’. Segal, says Homer uses warfare as opportunity to bring out the bloodiness and brutality, like the maltreatment of the dead
Gods
Relationship btwn gods & humans - Schein, ‘the gods in the Iliad are unaging, immortal and far superior to mortals in knowledge and power’, ‘the contrast between them and human would not be nearly so effective were it not for the fact that the gods are essentially anthropomorphic’. Silk, ‘Homer has done his best to make the men in the Iliad gods, and the gods men’, ‘as unchanging immortals, the gods have less to lose and therefore less to win’
Personal mortal connections - Schein, ‘since they are unaging and immortal, they risk nothing essential and the honour they are obsessed with winning and losing is not truly significant’. Silk, ‘their enjoyment may be complicated by the foreknowledge of the outcome and and by feelings of pity for the participants’
Interventions - Schein, ‘that the gods interfere in human actions or motivate human behaviour doesn’t mean that the human are not morally responsible agents’, ‘men who needed the gods the most were not the weak or powerless, but the strong and heroic…one was a hero because the gods supported you’
Role in the plot - Edwards, ‘they bring needed humour and relaxation to the grim tragedies of the poem’
Achilles
Sitting out the war - Schein, ‘the poem presents an evolving Achilles, out of whose initial resentment and later vacillation develops his unique absoluteness’
Gifts - Edwards, ‘supreme hero…who challenges the accepted norm of the society in which he lives’. Schein, ‘forces to the surface the real moral question of the poem: what, in a heroic world, is the true measure of the world’
Ach’s superiority - Schein, ‘the force and intensity of his anger are more than human, and his daemonic powers sets him apart from all other mortals’. Silk, ‘Achilles alone enjoys, or suffers, that special insight while he still lives’
Overall character - Silk, ‘[Homer’s] presentation of Achilles includes both and contribution to heroism and a challenge to it’
Fate and human responsibility
Fate seems in control - Jones, ‘he [Homer] often sees them as one and the same {fate and free will}’
Characters accept fate - Jones, ‘when Homer plays ‘Grand Destiny’ card he doesn’t see this as a dreadful imposition on humans; and indeed, when humans face their destiny they do so with remarkable aplomb and acceptance’
Can gods act against fate - Mueller, ‘he [Homer] shows that the gods in their bewildering contradiction as guarantors of the logic of events’
Destiny = day of death - Edwards, ‘its power is shown primarily in the determination of the length of a man’s life; the day of his death is set at the time of his birth’. Jones, ‘in most cases, ‘destiny/fate’ means simply, ‘the moment you (will) die’, and that moment is fixed the moment you are born’
If gods not involved, things not possible - Schein, ‘In these instances not rational explanation is explainable’
But humans still responsible - Mueller, ‘it’s a characteristic feature of Homeric psychology…that it will motivate an action externally through the intervention of a god, while at the same time holding the subject liable’
Women
All EDWARDS
Women as possessions - ‘he also ignores…the opinion of his strong-minded wife, Clytemnestra, for to take a concubine into one’s house is to dishonor his wife’
As plot devices - ‘Achilles’ speech…is a long and powerful outburst of feeling, with many powerful rhetorical questions’ (due to losing prize)
Standing up to men - ‘it’s a powerful demonstration of Helen’s strength of mind and her contempt for Paris and for her own past folly (bk3)’, ‘Helen is cowed by the divine threat and follows Aphrodite to Paris’ bedroom’, ‘repeats before our eyes the seduction that begins the tale’
Suicidal nature - ‘Homer fashions a scene that superbly depicts Helen’s wretched situation and her feelings of guilt (bk3), ‘Hecuba in turn bewails the loss not only to herself but to all the women of Troy’
Reliance of women on men - ‘her demonstration of her utter dependence on Hector foreshadows future events’ ‘the family picture…shows what the fall will mean to Andromache, her son,and all the other wives and mothers of the city’
Domestic role - ‘Helen is employed in her weaving, the proper work of a chaste housewife’, ‘the picture she is weaving is a fitting one, the struggles of the Trojans and Greeks for her sake, and indicated what is always on her mind’, ‘the headdress that falls from her head as she faints was a gift from Aphrodite the day she wedded Hector, and is a sign of a married woman’s modesty, to be violated when the city falls’
Minor characters
Menelaus - Donlan, ‘a willing but somewhat incompetent warrior, over whom his older brother Agamemnon clucks like a frightened mother hen’
Odysseus - Donlan, ‘Odysseus of the Iliad has all the potential of the Odyssean hero’
Diomedes - Donlan, ‘Diomedes is the [archetype] of a brilliant and modest young warrior, always eager to please’
Phoenix - Scott, ‘he’s presented as the older responsible judge at the chariot-race, called upon to solve disputes, looked up to, and respected as a voice of reason’
Patroclus - Peter Jones, ‘It’s not Patroclus’ fighting ability that will be his undoing. Quite the reverse. It will be his desire to go too far and refusal to rein himself in that will kill him’.
Hector - Schein, ‘perhaps the main difference between the two heroes is that Hector is represented as quintessentially social and human, while Achilles is inhumanly isolated and daemonic in his greatness’
