The Homeric Epic

1. The Homeric Epic HUM 2051: Civilization I Fall 2013 Dr. Perdigao August 28, 2013

2. Timeline • 1700-1450 BCE Height of Minoan civilization • 1400-1230 BCE Height of Mycenaean civilization • c. 1240 BCE Fall of Troy • 1100-800 BCE Dark Age, from Mycenaean to Hellenic civilization • 8th c. BCE Homer, Iliad c. 750-725 BCE

3. Transitions • Linear A: Minoan :: Linear B: Mycenaean • Greek and Greek civilizations at origin • Minoans displaced by Mycenaeans • Period of Calamities: 1200-1000 B.C.E. • Account of Troy around 1200 BCE not 800 BCE when Homer writes it • German businessman Heinrich Schliemann in 1871 excavates Mycenae, believes he finds Agamemnon’s grave though archaeologists now believe that the graves predate the Trojan War (1700-1600 BCE) • British archaeologist Arthur Evans in 1900 discovers Minoan civilization on Crete (Perry 51-52)

4. Transitions • From spoken: written language • Religion—festivals, rituals, games, sacrifices, not shared beliefs but actions and practices • Sense gods intervened in their world • Gods, demi-gods, heroes (humans with god-like status), spirits with overlapping roles so communities chose groups, specific deities to worship • Gods capable of jealousy, love, rage—like humans; are immortal, can’t suffer and can’t learn—unlike humans; huge contrast between gods and humans

5. Origins • Half-mythical blind bard Homer—single creator but combination from oral tradition of bards • Homer—writing within Dark Age but will be replaced by new one • Looking back at lost golden age with sense of what has been lost • Myth: Hecuba/Priam/Paris : Thetis/Peleus/Achilles

6. Frame Story • Myth underlying The Iliad: poet does not lay out, assumed we know • Hecuba (wife of Priam), while pregnant, has dream she gives birth to a firebrand that will destroy Troy, tells husband—Paris’ birth • Thetis and Peleus (Achilles’ parents) to marry; invite all except Eris=strife, struggle—because forgot—so doomed to succumb to it • Apple of discord—Eris inscribes with “for the fairest”: Hera (wife of Zeus, marriage); Athena (wisdom); Aphrodite (beauty) • Paris goes against Greek values—power, fame—chooses short-term with beauty, sensual pleasures, loses Hera, Athena in war

7. Structure and design of The Iliad • Oral epic: repetition (memory/improvisation): as “oral epic”—what is not necessary in writing Keys to memory, falls into patterns • Dactylic hexameter (- u u): one long, two short beats six units in each line but can have variation meter of poem like fate—wander but then always ends the same way in each line • Homeric epithets (rosy-fingered dawn, fleet-footed Achilles)

8. Conventions of the Epic • Invocation to the muse • Beginning in medias res • Use of Homeric epithets • Use of Homeric or epic similes • Use of catalogues • Long set speeches by major characters

9. Structural Design • Two parallel stories of two families • Poem about anger • Role of strife • Begins in rage, mania, anger, violence, differs from Christian worldview of perfection, then fall; here, strife is always present • Timé: esteem, reputation with others • Kudos: praise, glory • Arêté: excellence, potential • Goal of timé, arêté=immortality through memory