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Notes on video lecture:
The Structure of the Iliad
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on July 24, 2015 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
causalities, audience, idiosyncratic, aristocrats, Helen, Aphrodite, downfall, Patroclus, insane, Briseis, peace, Agamemnon, bravery, aristocratic, Scamander, poplar, 240, officer, Weil, conscience, simile, military, officer, Chryseis, Calchas, elsewhere, insurrection, recoveries, grudge, honor, plague, opens, brutalizes, symbolic, hill
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Homer's vision of war is                           
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doesn't dwell upon the                       
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participants either die instantly and painlessly or make spectacular                     
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they don't get shipped back to Greece crippled, blinded, mutilated or              as in real wars
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reasons for this
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his audience was primary                         
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he was composing for the                class
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the ancient equivalent of the Pentagon
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audience
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never indicates who his                  is
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those who provided him with board and lodging
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many non-                       would have heard the poem as well
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poem's action centers around the threat of                         
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book 1: Achilles is at the point of assassinating                   
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book 2:                [Κάλχας], a soothsayer, denounces Agamemnon for waging war, and tells them men they should all head home
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"we have no              against the Trojans, what are we doing fighting them"
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what is unique about Homer's vision of war
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concentrates on only four days of fighting
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these are its exclusive focus
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in the tenth and final year of the war
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at beginning
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we learn there was a              has been raging for nine days
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no abduction of Helen at the outset
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no Trojan horse at the end
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chooses a pivotal moment at the end of the war that will lead to Troy's                 
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sympathetic to           
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a woman with a                     
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reluctant to go to bed with Paris
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only does so when                    coerces her
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a war that had been going on for ten years
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war                     
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the more it goes on, the more people become dehumanized
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tempers fray
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people do despicable things
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this is built into the poem
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       warriors die
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188 Trojan
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52 Greek
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rage
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focuses on death of Achilles' friend                    [Πάτροκλος] by Hector
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the killing in turn of Hector
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what justifies a                  expedition to the other side of the world
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how can military leadership be held accountable
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what constitutes                and cowardice
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what does it mean to be in the thick of war and question the reason you are fighting
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Greeks are reading to pack it all in
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a plague has broken out
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this is where the poem           
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the face-off between Agamemnon and his                Achilles
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and it is still over a dispute about a woman
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as is the cause of the war
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a tale of love and glory
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Agamemnon threatens to take away Achilles battle prize, a girl named                [Βρισηΐς]
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Achilles interprets this as an insult to his honor
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warriors expect to be rewarded with prizes of           
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they are                 
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Agamemnon is breaking the rules
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even though the Iliad is about siege warfare, it hardly features siege warfare at all
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siege warfare doesn't make a great narrative
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we hear about an endless battle which goes one way one day, and another way the next
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Troy is a walled city on a slight         
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Greeks set up their camp in the valley of                    which occasionally flooded
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plunder is an important part of this war
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how Agamemnon recompenses and feeds his army to some extent
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how Achilles acquired the captive girl Briseis
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how Agamemnon acquired his captive girl                  [Χρυσηΐς]
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assumption that Greeks will accept ransom in exchange for their prisoners
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it's the fact that Agamemnon has refused to accept ransom from the father of Chryseis
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Simone         
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"brief evocations of the world of           "
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when Simoesios is struck down by Ajax at the end of Book 4
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tell to the ground like a black             , a poplar that is trimmed smooth at the bottom of its trunk, which a maker of chariots fells with his shining iron
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in order to bend it to make a wheel for a chariot
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with this beautiful             , we are transported to the world of craftsmanship and peace
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in this way Homer transports us                    for brief moments

Spelling Corrections:

ideosynchratic ⇒ idiosyncratic
Agemmemnon ⇒ Agamemnon
dispicable ⇒ despicable
focusses ⇒ focuses
Background of the Trojan War
Was the Trojan War a Historical Event?
How Was the Iliad Poem Born?
The Homeric Question and the Trojan War
The Structure of the Iliad
Homer, the Heroic Code, and the Wastage of War
The Warrior's Experience of War