Approaching Homer

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Read together
Reading sections of the Iliad should prepare you
for more efficient, more energetic and more productive further reading, and should inform your participation–
as a listener as well as a speaker–in discussion forums. Each week your approach to reading should develop, preparing you also for your written account of one
passage for your first paper. Each week concentrate
on central texts, but also explore readings
in varied media.

Notable characters in the Iliad appeal to readers and listeners by attempting

Consider

Achilles Curses Agamemnon
Iliad I, ll 262ff (Fagles p 85)
Odysseus Meets Thersites
Iliad II ll 245ff (Fagles, p 106)
Aphrodite Works
Iliad III ll 146ff (Fagles, p 132)
Pandarus Strikes
Iliad IV ll 100ff (Fagles, p 148)
Diomedes Wounds Ares
Iliad V ll 998ff (Fagles, p 192)
Hector Meets Andromache
Iliad VI, 439ff (Fagles, p 208)
Hector Meets Ajax
Iliad VII, V ll 236ff (Fagles, p 221)
Hera & Athena Face Zeus
Iliad VIII, ll 504ff (Fagles, p 245)
Phoenix Counsels Achilles
Iliad IX, ll 523ff (Fagles, p 266)
Spies Compete
Iliad X, ll 523ff (Fagles, p 291)
Sarpedon Seeks Fame
Iliad XII, ll 337ff (Fagles, p 334)
Hera Seduces Zeus
Iliad XIV, ll 187ff (Fagles, p 374)
Sarpedon’s Last Stand
Iliad XVI, ll 499ff (Fagles, p 426)
Hector Assumes Achilles’ Arms
Iliad XVII, ll 159ff (Fagles, p 447)
Hephaestus Shields Achilles
Iliad XVIII, ll 558ff (Fagles, p 483)
Achilles Goes Beserk
Iliad XXI, ll 110ff (Fagles, p 523)
Hector Faces Achilles
Iliad XXII, ll 293ff (Fagles, p 549)
Patroclus’ Final Appearance
Iliad XXIII, ll 65ff (Fagles, p 561)
Priam Joins Achilles
XXIV, ll 540ff (Fagles, p 603)

Click for Iliad Passage TOC

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Approaches to Epic
Following events in Homer's Iliad offers challenges and presents opportunities. Characters in the Iliad of course cannot act with full knowledge of circumstances. Their success, as well as survival, is in training selective focus on circumstances they presently face, with attention to shifts in expectations. Consider two features of the Iliad. First, numerous variations on a common theme occur. Everyone knows the expression for dying: "bite the dust". But experienced soldiers know that such an end is the consequence of particular wounds, that myriad other postures mark memorable endings. Consider the actions of different characters in dying moments. Patroclus will taunt Hector, forcing upon him the image of Achilles who will loom above him, a predator far more hateful than Hector in  his present circumstances.

Consider features which characterize Greek story-telling:

Greek Story-Telling

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Heroes
Greek heroes survive against great odds to earn a place in the story, but few survive long, and none find an afterlife suitable for adventurers beyond the shadowy possibility of momentary recognition in the memory of storytellers.

Consider the desperate stand of Greeks close by their ships as Trojans approach their ramparts with blazing torches. The Greek army faces death by fire with death by drowning close behind. But consider also the Trojans so near and yet so far from turning the invaders fated to bring down Troy in flame, presently unable to break through. Sarpedon, a leading Trojan ally prepares to break through, facing death from massed Greeks desperate in defense. Sarpedon invites his younger companion Glaucus to join his heroics, to earn a place in the story, to live on in memories of future generations. In reminding Glaucus the costs necessary to validate heroic actins, he steels himself as well to move towards death:

Sarpedon Seeks Fame

Aristotle offers a Greek understanding of pride, considering observable qualities in those recognized as worthy of pride.

Aristotle: Pride

Joan Didion offers a modern appreciation for those who recognize the costs of actions:

Didion: Morality
Self-Respect

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Approaching Homer

Read through a book at  time without worrying too much about meaning, but looking for particular scenes you find memorable. Look for scenes that raise specific questions. Return to a few of these scenes to consider how events occur in time, with particular attention to how characters see their changing circumstances. Consider themes
that will recur in many scenes:

Who is most impressive to fellow soldiers? What activities get the most respect?

How does conflict arise, and what are the virtues as well as the costs of conflict?

What is the value of pride, and what costs attend instances of pride?

How do characters relate to nature in particular circumstances?

What do characters expect others to approve or disapprove?

Now consider various particularities of character, time, place and action.

Appreciating actions through the Iliad involves your participation in specific settings, particular times and places, in circumstances which may differ notably from those you find familiar. Before debating Homeric actions and values consider Homeric practices. Centaurs, combining the energy of nature with the reflection of reason, attracted Greeks to the point of obsession.  Homeric Greeks may recognize the dangers of unbridled passion, but they surely found centaurs captivating as closer to natural forces than mere reasoning man.

Approaching Homer

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Who's who and what's what
Identification of Greek gods and goddesses may help. As you trace the interactions of gods and goddesses with particular mortals, you will come to appreciate their specific powers. Identifying Athena with wisdom, Aphrodite with love, and Hera with regal power can focus your attention, but following their activities in specific circumstances will enable you to discover their personalities. Athena favors Odysseus, the consummate strategist, and ingenuity rather than wisdom may better characterize this related goddess and mortal. Aphrodite favors Paris, and the love she fosters is passion, a passion which supplants all sense of reason and duty.

Realize that Greek gods and goddesses have distinctive spheres of influence. Zeus, as the most powerful of them all, is very different from a monotheistic god. Like an earthly king such as Agamemnon, many of his associates, not least his wife Hera, test his authority. He has come to power by overthrowing his own father, and he fears succumbing to his own offspring. Fate, moreover, not God, determines the outcome of crucial events. Characters in the Iliad generally act in credible circumstances. In rare cases gods and goddesses alter the course of final events by rescuing individuals from all-but-certain death. In general, however, human events take place in natural surroundings.

Gods & Goddesses

Identification of Iliad characters may clarify particular scenes. The Iliad traces the activities of major fighters. Thersites in Book II offers complaints as a representative of common foot soldiers, but however important in supporting the great fighters, common soldiers do not appear as notable, as praiseworthy, as seekers of fame. You may wish to identify characters appearing in the Iliad.
 

Iliad characters
 

Thomas Bullfinch offers a summary of events preceding and following the Iliad, as well as those comprising the Iliad. The Encyclopedia Britannica provides historical background for epic culture. The Life of Greece provides extended approaches to Greek history and culture. You may find such readings helpful.

Bullfinch on Troy

Britannica Greek History
The Life of Greece

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Homeric Myth and Epic

Homeric audiences generally would know the outcome of actions recited by Homer. Homer's success depends not on suspense, but on the credibility of circumstances, on convincing characterization, on particularities of time and place which make a specific action come to life. Actions offer variations on themes. Each variation traces the various, often unpredictable threads which come together at a particular moment. Homer’s tapestries characteristically contrast the expectations of characters with surprises attending shifting circumstances. A cultivated Greek party-goer centuries more cultivated than Homeric Greeks, still undergoes age-old transitions: succulent tastings in good company, rousing melodies, quiescent dreams, but eventual petrifying nightmares.

Greek myth also incorporates circumstantial changes. Consider the story oif Arachne, who gives her name to archnids, spiders. Her art may serve as a model for appreciating the character of Homer's stories. Like Helen, Arachne was a skilled weaver, one whose weavings brought to life the settings and activities of all that live and the natural and cultural settings in which they move. As her reputation grew, Arachne had reason to consider herself the greatest of weavers. Challenging Athena to a competition, Arachne showed not the idealized depiction of order and power presented by Athena, but the deceits practiced on mortal girls and women by gods. Athena, outraged, turned her into a spider, and as a spider she continues to weave today.

On any outdoor dark summer evening a curious modern observer pressing a flashlight to forehead, shining forward into grass, will discover innumerable green eyes flashing back, the eyes of spiders, essential inhabitants of suburban nature.

Homeric epic presents orally accounts of unfolding of natural desires often at odds with ideals. The story of is supplants the story of should. Myths offer condensed stories depicting desires in action. Epic, chanted with lyre, a simple harp, moved audiences by elaborating on the settings, characters and activities in which myths play out in historical times and historical places. For a taste of powerful condensation through myth, consider the compressed variations developed by Ovid in elegant Latin verse:

Ovid: Arachne

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Homeric Reading and Writing

Reading sections of the Iliad should prepare you for more efficient, more energetic and more productive reading for the next assignment, as well as preparing you for writing an account of one passage for your first paper. A successful reading enables you and other readers to reread incidents fruitfully. Fruitful readings will develop habits of attention essential for an effective Iliad paper. Selection of specific Iliad passages focus growing habits of attention on particular events.

Iliad passages
Readings of passages
The Iliad

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