The Iliad vs. The Burial at Thebes

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The Iliad vs. The Burial at Thebes

• From literature to philosophy to art

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Homer

• b. sometime around 800 b.c.e.?
• creator of epic poetry
• wrote The Iliad and The Odyssey
• we know NOTHING of him

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The Iliad

• Agamemnon and the Greeks are beginning their 10th
  year of fighting the Trojans
• Achilles, the best fighter, will not enter the
  battle because of his rage toward Agamemnon
• through the intervention of the Gods, the Greeks
  eventually begin to overpower the Trojans
• culmination of the battle occurs when Achilles
  defeats Hector
• we are foretold of events to come, e.g. Achilles
  death
• the poem focuses on great heroic battle

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Tensions and Themes

• Rage
• Heroic Acts
• Duty and Honor
• Ideal representation of Greek manhood
• Intervention of the Gods
• Guide to proper behavior

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Sophocles

• b. 496 b.c.e.
• d. 406 b.c.e.
• most prolific Greek tragedians, wrote 125 plays
• only 7 of these plays survive

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The Burial at Thebes

• written around 442 b.c.e.
• simple plot line of conflict between Creon and
  his niece Antigone
• Antigone, name means born to oppose in Greek
• against the law of Creon, she buries her brother
• she is sentenced to death for the crime
• she hangs herself
• Creons son and wife kill themselves in response
  to Antigones death
• What happens to Creon at the end?
• he gives up the throne after seeing the light

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Tensions and Themes

• tyranny vs. democracy
• Creon vs. Haemon
• who might the Athenian people have sided with?
• fate
• Oedipus as source of destiny
• The Gods and Heroes
• What role do they play?
• Who are they?

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Greek Philosophy

• Sophists
• offered wisdom to students
• emphasis on development of practical skills
  like public speaking
• committed to humanistic values
• man is the measure of all things
• human beings have the power to make judgments
  about themselves and their world
• helped to free the human spirit to become more
  creative
• tendency toward skepticism undermined
  traditional values of the power of the Gods

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• Socrates (470-399 b.c.e.)
• opposed Sophists
• also focused on human problems and empowerment of
  humans to make moral choices
• belief in an enduring moral and intellectual
  order in the universe
• the psyche is the most important thing
• it must be nurtured by knowledge
• one gains knowledge through stimulating
  conversations, debates, and abstract thinking
• he was seen as a heretic and a corruptor and was
  sentenced to death after Athens falls to the
  Spartans in 404 b.c.e.
• died by ingesting hemlock

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How does Philosophy relate to The Iliad and The
Burial at Thebes?

• The Iliad
• traditionally philosophical text
• uses the Gods as the controllers of human fate
• Achilles hero b/c he is godlike

• The Burial at Thebes
• Sophist or Socratic?
• role of the Gods?
• what defines a hero?

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How does Art figure into this?
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