Intro to the Epic

1
Intro to the Epic

• The Iliad
• The Odyssey

2
Characteristics of Epics

• Deal with the three major themes in lit
• Love (or lust)
• Death
• God (the divine or absence thereof)
• High Seriousness/Elevated style
• Long and complex

3
Secondary Characteristics

• Hero of imposing stature
• Vast setting
• Supernatural forces
• Action requires great deeds
• Catalogues of ships and soldiers
• Extended formal speeches
• Objective narration
• Epic similes
• Invocation of muse
• Begins in medias res

4
Types of Epics

• Primary Epics
• Begins as oral tradition
• Verse (sacred and easy to remember)
• Stock phrasing to fit meter
• Hector, breaker of horses
• Rhododaktulos Eos
• Epithets
• Metrical patterns for freeform performance
• Blues vs. classical

5
Types of Epics

• Secondary Epics
• Written to mimic format of primary epics
• Composed in writing rather than orally
• Virgils Aeneid is prototype

6
The Iliad

• MENIN AEIDE THEA!
• About Mycenaean Greece c. 2000 BC
• Written down post dark age c. 750 BC
• Author likely a rhapsode w/ literate relative
• Oral culture disappears w/ in one generation of
  advent of literacy in a society
• Written down at the transition period from oral
  to written culture

7
Greek Culture

• Shame rather than Guilt culture
• Time and Kleos Honor and Glory
• Armor as outward symbol of time, kleos, and
  identity
• Achilles and Patroclus
• You are who people think you are
• Disgrace actual injury

8
Arete

• Central tenant of culture is search for Arete
• Excellence or greatness
• Achilles in war, Helen in beauty, Odysseus in
  oration
• Achieving arete awarded by time and kleos
• Time and kleos can be achieved by social
  position as well as arete
• Not to be tossed aside, the gifts of the gods.
  -Paris

9
Arete in The Iliad

• Some caution regarding relentless pursuit of
  arete
• Hector and Andromache
• Helmet
• Family choices
• Priam and pity
• Though much is taken, much abides and though /
  We are not now that strength which in old days /
  Moved earth and heaven that which we are, we
  are. Alfred, Lord Tennyson Ulysses 65-67

10
Iliad Discussion Questions

• What views does Iliad present on the three great
  themes?
• In what way is the ethical vision of Iliad
  similar to our own?
• What does Homer seem to admire about the main
  characters?
• Why are the Trojans generally more sympathetic
  characters than the Greeks?

11
Iliad Discussion Questions 2

• What is Homers attitude toward war?
• To what extent does The Iliad support the Marxian
  assertion that literature works to support the
  ruling class of whatever culture it speaks for?

12
The Iliads Wife

• Samuel Butler characterized The Odyssey as a
  distinctly feminine perspective
• Settings
• Imaginary/fantastic
• Domestic and dominated by women
• Focus on nostos (homecoming) not rage
• Athena rather than Zeus the divinity of choice
• Interior arete rather than exterior
• Mental and moral excellence

13
Extended Arete

• In The Iliad arete only achieved by warriors
• The Odyssey shows arete in all Greeks
• Women (Penelope)
• Youth (Telemachus)
• Peasants (Eumaios)
• Elderly (Eurycleia)
• Animals? (Argos)

14
New focus on Nomos

• Nomos custom or proper behavior
• Violation of nomos makes arete impossible
• Suitors (young warriors)
• arete found in others in Ithaca instead
• Supposed to respect host, be kind to strangers
  and wayfarers

15
Odysseus as the Greek Ideal

• Warrior
• Orator
• Thinker
• Husband
• Worker