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Notes on video lecture:
The Warrior's Experience of War
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on September 23, 2015 (go to class or lectures)
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
mental, justice, danger, Thersites, physiology, Odysseus, Agamemnon, archaic, divinely, senseless, Priam, Apollo, tenth, color, insanitary, Shay, psyche, atrocities, lost, commoner, mutiny, bravery, Phobos, armor, flak, deformed, crack, speaking, 40, dies, spree, plague, pity, die, berzerk, comradeship, dehumanizes
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one of the most impressive aspects of the Iliad is the way Homer comprehends the              state of the warrior
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how the warrior is affected and changed over time by constant exposure to             
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and by seeing his comrades       
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how war                       
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and why people fight even if they don't believe in the                of the cause
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or in their actually being any cause
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so it is important to remember that when the Iliad begins, the Trojan war is in its            and final year
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yet even one year would be sufficient to
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cause morale to           
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cause soldiers to commit                      which they would ever otherwise be capable of doing
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by the time we enter the picture, the war has already taken a toll
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the play opens with             
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caused by              because of the fact that Agamemnon has taken as prisoner the daughter as one of Apollo's priests
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given the                      conditions in which the Achaeans were living, a plague was bound to break out
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the cause of the plague is over-determined, both                  caused and rationally caused
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back in                Greece they probably didn't know what the scientific cause of plague was
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war is not only about               
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fear affects the soldier no matter what
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Homer observes it closely
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the skin of the coward changes            one way and another, and the heart inside him has no control to keep him steady, and he shifts his weight from one foot to another, his heart pounds violently as he thinks of the death spirits and his teeth chatter together
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we hear of             , the sun of Ares the god of war, who frightens even the patient-hearted warrior
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a                        is of very high value
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in a modern army Patroclus [Πάτροκλος] would be awarded high honors, because he sacrifices his life for his comrades
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Achilles likens him, however, to a little girl when Patroclus felt for his comrades who put themselves in harm's way
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Iliad starts with an assembly, an argument between Achilles and                   
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                  , a Greek soldier who verbally criticizes Agamemnon
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ugly and somewhat                 
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treated as a comic character
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the only common soldier to have a                  role in the Iliad
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put down both verbally and physically by                 
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no clearly statement of aristocratic principle
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after 10 years of indecisive war,              is imminent
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challenged by both Achilles, his most valiant warrior, and by Thersites, his most expendable                 
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Achilles withdraws from Book 2 through Book 8
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comes to realization that it is                    to risk your life in battle
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Patroclus asks Achilles if he can borrow his Achilles           
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Achilles warns him to not go to far
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Patroclus then         
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Achilles is rough, but becomes rougher after Patroclus dies
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goes on killing            which is the most shocking description of killing in the entire poem
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Jonathan         
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Homer shows us the emotional state of a soldier who has just          his dear comrade
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in effect he goes               
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a Norse world that describe soldiers which fight in a kind of trance
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derived from ber (bear) and zerk (pelt)
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supposedly what these soldiers wore when they went into battle
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berzerking soldiers shed their helmets and          jackets
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this is what Achilles does when he first hears of Patrolus' death
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he says to his mother Thetis, do not hold me back from the fight, you will not persuade me
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but Thetis persuades him otherwise
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Apollo says of him: Achilles has destroyed         
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for a man who must lose someone who is even closer, a brother of the same womb, or a son
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Achilles has destroyed pity
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a very powerful, terrifying judgement, and we know this happens in war
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and when the killing spree is over, Thetis returns to Achilles and asks that he returns Hector's body to            which he does
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what happens to Achilles after the war we never learn since that is where the poem ends
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we never see Achilles again after he has returned the body
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Jonathan Shay notes that     % of Vietnam combat veterans continued in engaging in violent acts after they returned from the war
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if a soldier survives the berserk state, it imparts emotional deadness and vulnerability to explosive rage to his psychological and a permanent hyper-arousal to his                     
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Homer provides us with an extraordinary analyses of the damage to the              which war-induced explosive rage afflicts on the mind and physiology of the soldier
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helps us to hear what many veterans have been desperately trying to tell us about going berserk

Spelling Corrections:

valient ⇒ valient
Aecheans ⇒ Achaeans
berzerk ⇒ berserk

Ideas and Concepts:

Male bonding in the Iliad via tonight's Trojan War class: "The relationship between Achilles and Patroclus is a key element of the myths associated with the Trojan War. In the Iliad, the two heroes have a deep and meaningful friendship. Achilles is tender towards Patroclus, while he is callous and arrogant towards others. The exact nature of the relationship between these two men has been a subject of dispute in both the classical period and modern times, being interpreted in various cultures and at various times as everything from a egalitarian homosexual pairing, to a strong, non-sexual friendship between two war heroes. Due to their strong relationship, the death of Patroclus becomes the prime motivation for Achilles to return to battle. Whether in the context of a tender friendship or military excellence, Homer treats this relationships explicitly in the Iliad, yet left it open enough for later authors and cultures to reflect a variety of themes into their interpretations and development of this story embedded in the wider scope a major epic of our Western culture's literary heritage."
Book recommendation via this morning's Trojan War class: "Jonathan Shay's Book 'Achilles in Vietnam' works from the premise that the study of the Homeric epic, The Iliad, can illuminate our understanding of Vietnam, and vice versa. He compares the battlefield experiences of men like Agamemnon and Patroclus with those of frontline grunts, analyzes the berserker rage that overcame Achilles and so many American soldiers alike, and considers the ways in which societies ancient and modern have accounted for and dealt with post-traumatic stress disorder, a malady only recently recognized in medical literature, but well attested in Homer's pages. Homer provides us with an analysis of the damage to the psyche which war-induced explosive rage afflicts on the mind and physiology of the soldier, and Shay's book helps us to want to hear what many veterans have been desperately trying to tell us about going berzerk."
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