ΕΥΔΟΞΑ ΑΓΝΩΣΤΑ ΚΑΤΑΓΕΛΑΣΤΑ
Part 3: Analysis, Neoanalysis, and the Set List This post is part three of three looking more closely at the proposition that our Iliad is made up of a series of songs or ‘episodes’ put together in a monumental performance. The first part looks at some of the internal evidence for performance and provides some … Continue reading Homer’s ‘Set List’: Imagining a Performance of the Iliad
Part 2: Evidence for ‘Episodes’ from Literature and Art This post is a continuation of Painful Signs, a series of posts on the Iliad. The full list of posts is here. New posts will be added on various books, with an emphasis on new projects and highlighting scholarship in general. This post is part one of three looking … Continue reading Homer’s ‘Set List’: Imagining a Performance of the Iliad
Part 1: Singers in Homer and the Panathenaic Rule This post is a continuation of Painful Signs, a series of posts on the Iliad. The full list of posts is here. New posts will be added on various books, with an emphasis on new projects and highlighting scholarship in general. This post is part one of three looking … Continue reading Homer’s ‘Set List’: Imagining a Performance of the Iliad
When I was in high school–like many a high school geek in the early 90s–I was in a band. The other members of the band all had “cool parents” who played instruments and listened to early punk and the edgier “oldies”. (My father was congenitally deaf; my mother trended towards Neil Diamond and James Taylor). … Continue reading Psycho Killers: What Stop Making Sense Can teach Us About the Iliad
This post is a continuation of Painful Signs, a series of posts on the Iliad. The full list of posts is here. New posts will be added on various books, with an emphasis on new projects and highlighting scholarship in general. Why read Homer? Why read Homer when any reasonable person might think that our “bronze … Continue reading Reading Homer is like Prayer
This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 24. After eight posts about Iliad 24, what more can there be to say? The funeral games occupy the majority of Iliad 23, but the book begins with Achilles mourning the lost of Patroklos. At the end of the book, everyone else returns to sleep. Book … Continue reading A Restless Night of Grief: Or, How the Scholia are Wrong about Iliad 24
Disclaimer: I haven’t read any other reviews though I have listened to the one by Mark Kermode, as well as the accompanying interview with Nolan conducted by Simon Mayo. I’m also acutely aware that every Classicist and their Argos have since commented on the film. Below are my thoughts as a film goer with an interest in … Continue reading On viewing Nolan’s Odyssey
This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 24. The Iliad begins: “Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles” Μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω ᾿Αχιλῆος And then it ends: “And so they were completing the burial of Hektor, tamer of horses” ῝Ως οἵ γ’ ἀμφίεπον τάφον ῞Εκτορος ἱπποδάμοιο Imagine if all we had of the … Continue reading The Burial of Horse-Taming Hektor: Ending the Iliad
This is one of a few posts dedicated to Iliad 24. I have written about trauma and the Iliad in several posts. Last year, I provided an overview of work on psychology and Homer. Part of what I explain there is that there was resistance in much of the 20th century to applying modern psychological notions to … Continue reading Taking Helen Seriously: Reading Trauma into The Iliad
Once Hektor’s body is brought back to Troy, Priam and his family prepare for the term of burial promised by Achilles. Following the preparation of the body, three women of the household stand to sing laments in Hektor’s honor. Helen is the last. Homer, Iliad 24.761-775 Helen’s speech has the appearance of being rather simple … Continue reading “Better off Dead”: Helen’s Lament for Hektor in Iliad…