Scholars

Question 1

Didacticism

Answer 1

Interpretations that look for moral lessons in the story

Question 2

Allegory

Answer 2

Stories on two levels - a literal level and a figural level.

Question 3

What time period were allegory and didacticism?

Answer 3

Classical world - c18th

Question 4

(Didactic) What did Isocrates (436-338bc) say about the Iliad?

Answer 4

Agamemnon is a model of leadership

Question 5

(Didactic) What did Horace (65-8bc) say about the Iliad?

Answer 5

Homer tells us what is good, what is bad, what is useful, and what is not

Question 6

(Didactic) What did Plato (4thCbc) say about the Iliad?

Answer 6

He rejected Homer because he suggests behaviours that are opposed to Plato’s high standards of morality.

Question 7

(Allegorical) What did Horace say about the Iliad?

Answer 7

He argued that the Iliad is a ‘how not to’, showing the importance of accepting our moral responsibilities

Question 8

(Allegorical) What did Chapman (early C16th) say about the Iliad?

Answer 8

• Thought the message was about destructiveness of uncontrolled passion.
  -tries to explain Achilles’ irrational behaviour by arguing he comes under the influence of evil spirits.

Question 9

(Allegory/Didactic) What did Alexander Pope say about the Iliad?

Answer 9

Didactic point: destructiveness of discord and the importance of agreement
He didn’t try to allegorise the entire text

Question 10

Renaissance

Answer 10

C14th-C17th
Scholars didn’t like Homer because they read the Aeneid first

Question 11

3 Renaissance Scholars

Answer 11

Vives (1492-1540)
Rapin (1621-87)
Scaliger (1484 - 1558)

Question 12

(Renaissance) What did Vives say about Homer?

Answer 12

-found Homer ‘too superficial and wordy’
-wanted Homer’s heroes to offer readers uplifting mortal examples, didn’t like book 17 bc of flies comparison

Question 13

(Renaissance) What did Rapin say about the Iliad?

Answer 13

• wanted the gods to be more dignified
• the subjects were ‘disappointingly trivial’
• achilles was petty and emotional

Question 14

(Renaissance) What did Scaliger say about the Iliad?

Answer 14

• wanted the gods to be more dignified
• epithets were ‘cold, childish, pointless’

Question 15

Romanticism

Answer 15

Roughly 1770-1850
Importance of emotion, nature, individual, and the past
Didn’t like the classics
Didn’t like Homer’s subject matters (war, killing)

Question 16

(Romanticism) What did Coleridge say about the Iliad?

Answer 16

Behaviours of soldiers of his day was the result of classical ideas about heroism

Question 17

(Romanticism) What did Blake say about the Iliad?

Answer 17

Dismisses men of classical epics as ‘slaves of the sword’

Question 18

Analysm

Answer 18

Aimed to work out the process which produced Homer’s epics
They believed the Iliad was not by a single author