ILIAD SCHOLARS Flashcards
Homer seems
to have made his men gods and his gods men.
- Ancient critic
god’s greatness
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
the gods are largely
amoral, beyond good and evil
- Silk
Homer is perfectly
capable of showing people making up their own minds without divine intervention.
- Jones
though consistently
and coherently represented as external forces, they constitute forces we may take equally as internal
- Silk
Homer has attributed to the gods
everything that is thought a sham and a reproach among mankind: theft, adultery, deceitfulness.
- Xenophanes
Homer does not concern himself
with the theological problem of the relationship of gods and fate.
- Edwards
Homer’s treatment of war
is nevertheless realistic.
- Griffin
war means something very
unfashionable in our generation, a magnificent event
- Silk
war is a
microcosm of life in general
- Edwards
war provides a young man
with the opportunities not only to achieve honour but also to die nobly and escape the indignities of an old age.
- Edwards
proem of the Iliad
speaks of glory, not suffering
- Edwards
Homer sees warfare as a
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
a great hero
is entitled to his wrath and it gives him no blame
- Jenkyns
Achilles has chosen
heroism and he can accept his own imminent death but instead of heroic satisfaction, he feels a tragic sense of futility
- Griffin
The Homeric ideal
is to be a speaker of words and a doer of deeds
- Jenkyns
Hector is the
pure patriot trying to save his city, not defend his brother’s guilt.
- Edwards
Paris embodies the
treachery and broken faith that are the fatal weaknesses in the Trojan cause
- Edwards
it is not the way of a
dramatic poet to describe characters but to show them
- Owen
the hero cheats
death of its victory by making it a servant of his glory
- Owen
one of the great
skills of the Iliad is the art of contrasts
- Jenkyns
the weather exists only
as a reflection and intensification of events on the battlefield
- Griffin
Homer leaves
the stage to his men and women, all with characters of their own
- Aristotle
where the drama is most
intense the digressions are the longest and details the fullest
- Austin
book 10 holds
no essential place in the story of the Iliad
- Leaf
it is symptomatic
that the Iliad should contain no romance
- Silk
Helen desires
Paris in spite of herself
- Edwards
the self-reproach
but also the utter loneliness and isolation of this unhappy woman
- Edwards
Helen goes to Paris’ bed
and it is Helen’s choice and not the goddess’ threat that brings about this conclusion
- Edwards
Homer’s people
in general seem to show no capacity for development: character is conceived as static
- Silk
the most important theme
is Achilles’ growing recognition of his mortality
- Barker and Christiensen
it is clear that Achilles
is an uncomfortable and even destructive presence in the heroic world
- Silk
there is a tension
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
heroic behaviour
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
the character of Achilles
is not good in any other sense than that he excels others in physical prowess and is the best fighter
- Sowerby
Patroclus is a kind of
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
Achilles is torn
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
Achilles’ greatness lies in his
his unblinking confrontation with and acknowledgement of what he alone has brought about.
- Owen
it is the interweaving of
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
Hector’s soliloquy
stands among the supreme dramatic utterances in the Iliad
- Owen
it is simple fear
undisguised; yet you feel that the man who flees is a brave man.
We get the sense of terror at Achilles coming.
- Owen
Andromache is
deliberately suppressed by Hector
youth/maiden simile that suggests he is thinking about her
- Owen
a private revenge
he has a raging passion for his friend’s death
- Owen
we are intended
to condemn Achilles’ conduct here
- Owen
Hector was the
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
book 23 brings
a momentary sense of peace and reconciliation among gods and men
- Owen
book 24 reflects
a universal sorrow and a sympathy for the doom of mankind
- Owen
Achilles represents the greatness
of the human spirit that rises above the misery and futility of the conditions in which it finds itself.
- Owen
Achilles typifies
humanity in its greatness and in its sorrow and feebleness.
- Owen
the delay prolongs
and sharpens the suspense
- Owens
(arming before Patroclus fights)
deliberately undercutting the
inside/outside spatial separation of men and women
- Greensmith (about Helen and Andromache going to the Scaean gate)
Helen’s insight into her male
counterparts elevates her from a passive witness into a perceptive mouth-piece for the war itself
- Greensmith
Andromache proves false any notion of the Iliadic
female being excluded from and ignorant of the world of war
- Greensmith
