I. Historical Context

            a) Israel, the northern kingdom, will soon be attacked and it's people carried off by the Assyrians.

            b) Ascendancy of Assyrian Empire

            c) Already we have a literary tradition of epic in Mesopotamia (e.g., Gilgamesh)

        2) What's going on in Europe?

            a) Not much of interest in terms of literature

            b) Rome is founded around this time--king rules small region

        3) What's going on in the Western Mediterranean?

            a) Cities states beginning to form in Greece

            b) Greek orthography available to record literary works

            a) The exodus of the Israelites from Egypt soon after, depending on dating system

            b) The Period of the Judges in Israel

        2) What is often called the Greek dark ages, after Mycenaean civilization

II. Literary Context

    A. Epic Cycle (handout from Lattimore translation)

        1) Material exists in fragmentary form that suggests an oral tradition of songs performed around the general subject of the Trojan war, including what precipitated it and what followed it.

        2) The epic cycle probably included (not limited to) the following works:

            source: http://vergil.classics.upenn.edu/comm2/sources/summaries.html

            a) Aethiopis

                The Aethiopis was an epic in five books attributed to Arctinus of Miletus. Its plot seems to contain two main events: the arrival of Penthesilea the Amazon and that of Memnon, both of whom fight on the side of the Trojans. Achilles slays them both, and Thersites as well, who accuses him of being in love with the Amazon. In addition, Achilles is killed by Paris and Apollo, and his body is rescued by Ajax and Odysseus. Subsequently, Thetis takes him from his pyre to Leuce, which implies that he was granted immortality, a tradition that contradicts that of Homer's mortal Achilles.

            b) Cypria

                The Cypria recounts events from the beginning of the Trojan War to just before the start of the Iliad. Some key events in this poem are Zeus's decision to begin the Trojan War in order to relieve the earth's overpopulation, the judgment of Paris, the sacrifice of Iphigeneia, and the death of Troilus.

            c) Iliupersis

                The Iliupersis recounts the actual sack of Troy by the Greeks.

            d) Little Iliad

                The Little Iliad is an epic in four books attributed to Lesches of Mytilene. Its date is uncertain The subject matter includes Odysseus's obtaining Achilles's arms and Ajax's resulting madness, Deiphobus's marriage to Helen, and the making of the Trojan Horse. The Little Iliad may be just a portion of one larger epic originally formed by it, the Aethiopis, and the Iliupersis (Davies 62-63).

            e) Nostoi

                Nostoi accounts for the returns home of Greek heroes besides Odysseus, focusing largely on Agamemnon and Menelaus.

    B. Homer did not slavishly follow the epic cycle; he both incorporated and innovated.

    C. The state and provenance of Greek mythology

        1) Hesiod

            a) Theogony: Origin of the gods

            b) Works and Days: Man, being in the so-called Iron Age of man (lesser state of man after a decline), can cultivate two virtues—justice and work—gives glimpse of the comman man, farmer.

            c) Shield (probably not Hesiod, but attributed to him): describes the shield of Herakles

         2) Homeric Hymns (possibly alternate authorship): hymns to a collection of gods whose characteristics are generally describes, including epithets.

    D. Genre/Performance

        1) Epic is an animal unto itself--Lewis

            a) Primary Epic (Refer to Lewis's Preface to Paradise Lost)

                1. Context and Quality of Performance

                    a. It has the quality of solemnity without being dour; it celebrates—think of the exploits of Diomedes if he had been one of your relatives.

                    b. Homer may have started at the hearth of the course but moved then into the realm of public recitation at festivals

                2. Technique

                    a. Stock words, phrases, and lines.

                        i. epic epithet (Give some examples, far-shooting Apollo from the Homeric Hymns.)

                        ii. the result is making real the otherwise outlandish (ibid, p.23)

                        iii. such repetition, including meter, becomes habit for the poet and frees his creative faculties for the larger questions of structure and subject.

                    b. It is not the business of epic poetry, as much as perhaps the forms of lyrical poetry one might read to himself by a stream, to come off with the stunningly perfect line, the lines are supposed to work together to end in some greater movement of thought and form (ibid, p. 21)

                3. Subject

                    a. Not, as is true with the later Aeneid, the grand “national or cosmic subject of superpersonal interest” (Lewis, Preface to Paradise Lost, 27)

                    b. Even the Iliad is not so much about the war as about Achilles (ibid., p.27) and the “kaleidoscope” (ibid., p. 30) of heroic toil (p. 30) in a world and a time that is brutal and fortunes unsteady. Achilles speech in Book IX bears this out rather nicely.

                    c. Read p. 31 beginning with “Primary Epic is great...”

                    b) Secondary Epic is derivative, among other things

        2) What is an epic hero? Based on the above, it is a great man who struggles nobly, if tragically.

        3) What are some further qualities of epic, according to Aristotle?

            a) repetition, including whole passages and epithets

            b) consistent meter

            c) single action with a beginning, middle, and end (Ar. Poetics, XXIII.1)

            d) unlike tragic drama, more than one thing can be going on at one time—e.g., Homer can move from palace, to camp, to battlefield immediately, without awkward scene changes, which Aristotle says, “conduces to grandeur of effect” (Poetics, XXIV.4)

            e) Homer does not often speak directly; he allows others—with their own fully developed voice—speak their own words, which are ultimately his of course, and thereby add balance and depth to the interpretation of the actions (Ar. Poetics, XXIV.7)

            f) Again, according to Aristotle, Homer taught the other poets the “art of telling lies skillfully” (Poetics, XXIV.9).

            g) According it A., the epic poet should “prefer probable impossibilities to improbable possibilities” (Poetics, XXIV.10)

            h) A. again, “The diction should be elaborated in the pauses of the action, where there is no expression of character or thought. For, conversely, character and thought are merely obscured by a diction that is overbrilliant” (Poetics, XXIV.11).

    E. Audience (Who would have been listening to the story and why would they have been interested)

        1) Originally, nobles who would have had at least some mythical genealogical connection to the heroes presented in the works

        2) Afterwards a larger civic audience

III. Language

    A. Originally written in Ancient Greek (see handout)

    B. Many translations into English exist

        1) Problems of translation (contextual, linguistic, etc.)

        2) What can a translation hope to achieve (approximation of style, voice, language, etc.)

            1. Translators must make choices

            2. Choices often at the expense of some aspect of the work the remains intact in the original

IV. Form

    A. Prosody

        1) English meter is based on accent while ancient Greek and Latin Meters are based on length of the vowels. (see Halporan et al. link)

        2) Dactylic Hexameter (see Halporan and notes)

        3) Caeusura (we didn't discuss this in class)

        4) Probably recited to a lyre at some point.

    B. Larger Structure of the narrative

        1) Cyclical (refer to article)

        2) Parts divided into hexads (4 sections of six books each, see Bruce Heiden article on the subject)

        3) Repetitious in places (refer to dream of Agamemnon or the envoy in Book 9)

    C. What is emphasized based on the beginning and ending point as well as the argument?

        1) Begins with the loss of Achilles honor and his anger

        2) Ends with a meter between Achilles and Priam showing Achilles in a different light

VI. Scholarship on the Iliad

    B. Commentaries (G. S. Kirk commentaries in room #5, back of your own copy of the book)

    C. Journal Articles: (http://www.almaheights.com/articles/iliad/iliad_articles.html)

    D. Books (too numerous to mention but see the handbook to Homer in room #5)

    E. Dictionaries (dictionary of of an encyclopedic nature covering the weapons and other articles mentioned in the text in room #5)