EDWARD'S LECTURE NOTES:
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C O U R S E
Greeks at War: Homer at Troy
Robert Garland, Colgate University
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C O U R S E L E C T U R E The Structure of the Iliad Notes taken on July 24, 2015 by Edward Tanguay |
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Homer's vision of war is idiosyncratic
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doesn't dwell upon the causalities
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participants either die instantly and painlessly or make spectacular recoveries
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they don't get shipped back to Greece crippled, blinded, mutilated or insane as in real wars
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reasons for this
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his audience was primary aristocratic
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he was composing for the officer class
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the ancient equivalent of the Pentagon
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audience
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never indicates who his audience is
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those who provided him with board and lodging
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many non-aristocrats would have heard the poem as well
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poem's action centers around the threat of insurrection
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book 1: Achilles is at the point of assassinating Agamemnon
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book 2: Calchas [Κάλχας], a soothsayer, denounces Agamemnon for waging war, and tells them men they should all head home
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"we have no grudge 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 plague 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 downfall
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sympathetic to Helen
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a woman with a conscience
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reluctant to go to bed with Paris
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only does so when Aphrodite coerces her
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a war that had been going on for ten years
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war brutalizes
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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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240 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 Patroclus [Πάτροκλος] by Hector
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the killing in turn of Hector
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what justifies a military 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 bravery 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 opens
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the face-off between Agamemnon and his officer 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 Briseis [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 honor
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they are symbolic
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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 hill
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Greeks set up their camp in the valley of Scamander 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 Chryseis [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 Weil
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"brief evocations of the world of peace"
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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 poplar, 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 simile, we are transported to the world of craftsmanship and peace
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in this way Homer transports us elsewhere for brief moments