ILIAD SCHOLARS

Question 1

Homer seems

Answer 1

to have made his men gods and his gods men.
- Ancient critic

Question 2

god’s greatness

Answer 2

resides in fact that they do not need to feel for us. Their frivolity does not diminish them; it is the touchstone of their divinity.
-Jenkyns

Question 3

the gods are largely

Answer 3

amoral, beyond good and evil
- Silk

Question 4

Homer is perfectly

Answer 4

capable of showing people making up their own minds without divine intervention.
- Jones

Question 5

though consistently

Answer 5

and coherently represented as external forces, they constitute forces we may take equally as internal
- Silk

Question 6

Homer has attributed to the gods

Answer 6

everything that is thought a sham and a reproach among mankind: theft, adultery, deceitfulness.
- Xenophanes

Question 7

Homer does not concern himself

Answer 7

with the theological problem of the relationship of gods and fate.
- Edwards

Question 8

Homer’s treatment of war

Answer 8

is nevertheless realistic.
- Griffin

Question 9

war means something very

Answer 9

unfashionable in our generation, a magnificent event
- Silk

Question 10

war is a

Answer 10

microcosm of life in general
- Edwards

Question 11

war provides a young man

Answer 11

with the opportunities not only to achieve honour but also to die nobly and escape the indignities of an old age.
- Edwards

Question 12

proem of the Iliad

Answer 12

speaks of glory, not suffering
- Edwards

Question 13

Homer sees warfare as a

Answer 13

necessity in human affairs and as a field to play out the unrelenting struggle for honour, even at the cost of one’s life, but it is one of the evils the gods had decreed for mankind, not a glorious opportunity for heroism
- Edwards

Question 14

a great hero

Answer 14

is entitled to his wrath and it gives him no blame
- Jenkyns

Question 15

Achilles has chosen

Answer 15

heroism and he can accept his own imminent death but instead of heroic satisfaction, he feels a tragic sense of futility
- Griffin

Question 16

The Homeric ideal

Answer 16

is to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds
- Jenkyns

Question 17

Hector is the

Answer 17

pure patriot trying to save his city, not defend his brother’s guilt.
- Edwards

Question 18

Paris embodies the

Answer 18

treachery and broken faith that are the fatal weaknesses in the Trojan cause
- Edwards

Question 19

it is not the way of a

Answer 19

dramatic poet to describe characters but to show them
- Owen

Question 20

the hero cheats

Answer 20

death of its victory by making it a servant of his glory
- Owen

Question 21

one of the great

Answer 21

skills of the Iliad is the art of contrasts
- Jenkyns

Question 22

the weather exists only

Answer 22

as a reflection and intensification of events on the battlefield
- Griffin

Question 23

Homer leaves

Answer 23

the stage to his men and women, all with characters of their own
- Aristotle

Question 24

where the drama is most

Answer 24

intense the digressions are the longest and details the fullest
- Austin

Question 25

book 10 holds

Answer 25

no essential place in the story of the Iliad
- Leaf

Question 26

it is symptomatic

Answer 26

that the Iliad should contain no romance
- Silk

Question 27

Helen desires

Answer 27

Paris in spite of herself
- Edwards

Question 28

the self-reproach

Answer 28

but also the utter loneliness and isolation of this unhappy woman
- Edwards

Question 29

Helen goes to Paris’ bed

Answer 29

and it is Helen’s choice and not the goddess’ threat that brings about this conclusion
- Edwards

Question 30

Homer’s people

Answer 30

in general seem to show no capacity for development: character is conceived as static
- Silk

Question 31

the most important theme

Answer 31

is Achilles’ growing recognition of his mortality
- Barker and Christiensen

Question 32

it is clear that Achilles

Answer 32

is an uncomfortable and even destructive presence in the heroic world
- Silk

Question 33

there is a tension

Answer 33

at the heart between the hero’s natural desire for the honour and status to be gained by winning, and his obligations to others to co-operate with them and ensure that their honour is not compromised by his search for his own
- Jones

Question 34

heroic behaviour

Answer 34

and its consequences in Achilles are the central subject around which Homer builds the Iliad. Within it are contained issues of self-control, power, authority and compromise (or lack of it) which resonate far beyond the military context in which they are set. Above it rises the magnificent figure of Achilles, obsessive, complex, extreme, austere, reaping the whirlwind of the decisions he freely makes
- Jones

Question 35

the character of Achilles

Answer 35

is not good in any other sense than that he excels others in physical prowess and is the best fighter
- Sowerby

Question 36

Patroclus is a kind of

Answer 36

mirror in which the selfish, violent Achilles can imagine he sees himself in a purer form. Among the Greeks Patroclus stands out as a charmingly innocent, compassionate man, lacking the lion-like rapacity of warriors like Diomedes and Achilles.
- Bespaloff

Question 37

Achilles is torn

Answer 37

between concern for the battered Greeks, sympathy for Patroclus’ grief, longing to return to the battle himself, desire for restoration of his own honour, need to stand by his own words and above all fear for the safety of Patroclus.
- Edwards

Question 38

Achilles’ greatness lies in his

Answer 38

his unblinking confrontation with and acknowledgement of what he alone has brought about.
- Owen

Question 39

it is the interweaving of

Answer 39

contrasting words that suggests the beauty and power now fallen and marred.
(Great Achilles/ fallen in the dust; black ashes on his sweet- smelling tunic.)
- Owen

Question 40

Hector’s soliloquy

Answer 40

stands among the supreme dramatic utterances in the Iliad
- Owen

Question 41

it is simple fear

Answer 41

undisguised; yet you feel that the man who flees is a brave man.
We get the sense of terror at Achilles coming.
- Owen

Question 41

Andromache is

Answer 41

deliberately suppressed by Hector
youth/maiden simile that suggests he is thinking about her
- Owen

Question 42

a private revenge

Answer 42

he has a raging passion for his friend’s death
- Owen

Question 43

we are intended

Answer 43

to condemn Achilles’ conduct here
- Owen

Question 44

Hector was the

Answer 44

champion of a course which was distasteful to him, fighting a foe whom he regarded as superior, he could not hope for the sympathy of the gods in a cause he himself condemned. He was in the war solely as defender of his family and his state.
- Scott

Question 45

book 23 brings

Answer 45

a momentary sense of peace and reconciliation among gods and men
- Owen

Question 46

book 24 reflects

Answer 46

a universal sorrow and a sympathy for the doom of mankind
- Owen

Question 47

Achilles represents the greatness

Answer 47

of the human spirit that rises above the misery and futility of the conditions in which it finds itself.
- Owen

Question 48

Achilles typifies

Answer 48

humanity in its greatness and in its sorrow and feebleness.
- Owen

Question 49

the delay prolongs

Answer 49

and sharpens the suspense
- Owens
(arming before Patroclus fights)

Question 50

deliberately undercutting the

Answer 50

inside/outside spatial separation of men and women
- Greensmith (about Helen and Andromache going to the Scaean gate)

Question 51

Helen’s insight into her male

Answer 51

counterparts elevates her from a passive witness into a perceptive mouth-piece for the war itself
- Greensmith

Question 52

Andromache proves false any notion of the Iliadic

Answer 52

female being excluded from and ignorant of the world of war
- Greensmith