Similes in Homer, ctd.

--The "scene" is by no means limited to battlescape and to Olympus, in fact the world of gods and heroes is almost entirely absent from the world of the similes: this is a world of ordinary men and women

a. What do we know about the battle-scape? Note how exceptionally stark and austere, how extraordinarily featureless, rather like an artsy b&w photograph, or a minimalist stage set. No trees [well, one wild fig tree], hills, weather, creatures. Excepting very symbolic elements: gate, wall, ships, sea-edge. (Boundary conditions.)

b. What do we know about the soldiers? What about the necessary logistical support for the army? What about the daily interaction of the men, those many long hours away from battle? That is, how detailed a picture do we have of the army as opposed to the heroic leaders?

c. Now on the other hand, what generally can we say about (1) scenes involving the gods and (2) similes? That is, how detailed, what are the subjects, etc. Note that the similes operate so as to freeze the action, to hold the narrative still for a while as we gaze upon the scene, and as a different set of emotions and associations are allowed to raise themselves in our breasts

d. These observations can be used to reply in part to a central essentialist investigation: Why does the Iliad still interest us? Why does it continue to be o affecting as literature, what is it that is universal, non-specific to the particular time and culture in which it was constructed?

The world of battles and heroes is exceptionally stark. Severe, restricted, focussed. The world of the gods, the world of similes, and to some extent the world of the people inside Troy, provide then controlled access to the light, to the world as we know it, a world with easy and natural interpersonal relations, be they of laughter or tears, a world affected by storms and wind and rain, a world of hills and dales, cows and boars and lions and donkeys, of girls and dancing, of trees and the leaves which fall to the ground as the season turns. The battlefield however is a stark barren terrain, with little to differentiate it beyond the archetypal symbols of gate, wall, sea-shore. The men of the "host" are shadowy figures like the dark confused faceless figures which so commonly hover in the background of turn-of-the-century German paintings. The armies clash, but the roar is indistinct, the individuals faceless, nameless, their movements unspecified, their deaths marked by the myriad corpses burned at the end of the engagement. The spotlight shines solely on the named heroes, the chiefs, who fight battles much larger than life, who toss stones which no two men today could even lift. The interaction of these heroes is itself strictly controlled, informed by "heroic" emotions such as the seeking for glory, kleos, in the battle, and the expectation of timê, honor, in return for the kleos gained; or the rage which comes from timê refused, or the atê which informs the folly and rashness of an Agamemnon (or of a Diomedes or Patroklos when he gets carried away and attacks a god). The effect of these strongly drawn conflicts and emotions, bare and exposed, on so stark a background, is a very peculiar one; heightened, I would suggest, by the contrast of the world we see in Olympus, and the many glimpses into the rich and complex world of "ordinary" men seen in the similes (and on the shield of Achilles). The vignettes into the light, into the "real" world, work as a relief from the fighting, as reminders of a peaceful society, but the contrast also works to highlight the very starkness and austerity which informs the battle-scape. The battle-scape itself is rather like a dream-scape or, if you will, a mind-scape, on which some fundamental human passions play themselves out in this larger than life way, and with larger than life consequence. This sort of "archetypal" imaging, this sort of objectification of certain human emotions and desires is, I think, at least part of what lends the Iliad an effect beyond its specific cultural grounding.

[Overstated, to be sure, but perhaps helpful as a point of view.]

Note also the optimism of the world informed by the similes and the shield of Achilles.

The Death of Patroclus, Book 16: The importance of armor

1. Does anyone on the Greek or Trojan side believe that P. is Achilles? (despite Nestor's strategic objective)

2. The armor as an objective correlative -- a visually compelling object that bespeaks a human attitude or emotion -- for hubris -- the donning of divine armor by those without divine ancestry like Patroclus and Hector: the reason for Achilles' mercilessness will be vividly present when Hector and Achilles come to fight

3. Importance of the foreshadowing of the death of (a) Hector and (b) Achilles: note how tightly these are linked, how inescapable is the movement of the narrative once Achilles decides to lend his armor to P. and P. goes with the Myrmidons to the battle

4. Patroclus as "second self": how would this work? Who, symbolically, does Hector kill? Who then does Achilles kill! [We'll come back to this: be on the lookout for echoes between books 16 and 22!]

5. Complexity of Achilles' emotions and motivations: (pp. 414-415)

• concern for the embattled Greeks
• sympathy for Patroclus' grief for the Greeks
• longing to return to battle and achieve kleos
• desire for the gifts which are the basis of his timê, and the sign of Agamemnon's yielding
• need to stand by his vow to not return until the Trojans attack his own ships
• fear for the safety of Patroclus
• (Note the illogicality of his position: sending P. out will insure that the Trojans never make it to his ships!)
• Central question: what motivates Achilles? (Achilles is, finally, a much more complex figure than, say, Diomedes)

The Shield of Achilles, Book 18

Given the centrality of armor in raising questions of identity in book 16, what can we say of the huge emphasis on the armor in book 18?

Narratively: allows delay between killing of Patroclus and Achilles, & the lovely scene at the house of Hephaestus gives a wonderful, lyric pause from the grimness of the battle

Structure: like catalogues (note Myrmidons), lends a monumental emphasis to what is about to happen: importance of amplitude: acts like a hugely expanded arming type scene

But symbolically?

• divine/mortal juxtaposition: the divine armor protecting the half-mortal, half-divine hero: but note how well the earlier divine armor protected Patroclus and Achilles;
• the scenes themselves, a highly unusual decorative motif for epic armor! Contrast the shield of Agamemnon (book 11), with its terrifying Gorgon head, together with Fear and Terror, and fearsome serpents on the shield strap-- all other descriptions of shields are of this type: why is Achilles' shield so different, what does it suggest? (again, the world of ordinary people, like the similes, forms the backdrop to the grim, implacable rage of Achilles, and suggests some sort of optimism for the world removed from that of the hero: recall Achilles' choice: he too could have chosen this other world, the world away from the battlescape)

As a teaser for our discussion of foreshadowing next time:

Book 18: the grief of Achilles: note the funereal elements:

• Achilles pours dust over his head, then: "overpowered in all his power, sprawled in the dust, Achilles lay there, fallen...." (p. 468) - elsewhere only of fallen victims in battle (formula)
• Slave women wail about his fallen figure, like mourners over a corpse
• Thetis arrives, and takes Achilles' head in her arms, a mourning gesture over a corpse: cf. Andromache in book 24, thus taken the head of Hector
• Presence of the Nereids suggests a funeral rather than concern over a fallen friend: female relatives help to mourn the corpse in Greek society

Similarly, for our discussion of gods in the Iliad next time:

Sarpedon episode, p. 427

Implacable fury of divinity (Hera), p. 479: how does this contrast with what is happening in the human sphere?

Homer and History

• Homer lives towards the end of the "Dark Ages" when there were no palaces, not much wealth, and society seems to have been organized as a ranked chieftain society (review Donlan material)
• But Homer writes about the Mycenean Age (the great age of Palaces, when Mycene was a great palace center) = 1600-1200
• Fall of Troy = about 1250 or 1220
• Destruction of Mycene = about 1150
• Dark Ages = 1200-800
• Does Homer preserve actual "history" of a "real" Trojan War? Can oral traditions accurately preserve hard information over 500 years? Did any of this really happen?

Heinrich Schliemann: 20 years of excavations at Hissarlik, 1871 ("Treasure of Priam", Sophie Schliemann)

• Hissarlik/Hisarlik:
• beetle-browed walls, of the wide streets, windy, signs of sudden devastation
• close to Hellespont, Mt. Ida
• two rivers in plain below, islands of Tenedos etc. close by
• (Troy II vs. Troy VI vs. Troy VIIa)
• Mycene, Tiryns, Pylos

Oral tradition as societal memory

Many memories go back only to the Dark Ages:

• society of ranked chiefs, rather than the palace monarchy of the Mycenean Age
• lack of writing, or of government bureaucracy

Some memories, however, DO seem to go back to the Mycenean Age

• the fact of a Trojan War
• the fact of a Mycenean civilization (sophisticated artwork: cup, detail)
• the location of the Mycenean palace centers (Mycene, Pylos, Tiryns)
• some specific things unique to that period: cup of Nestor, boar's tusk helmet, earring

Other memories seem to go back to the Mycenean period (500 years!), but are more or less confused

• chariot warfare
• body shield
• thrusting spear
• And still other "memories" seem to be deliberate archaizing, that is, deliberate attempts to give the stories an old feel, but not in every respect historically accurate, and probably not a real passing on of information in the oral tradition
• Bronze for weapons, iron for household utensils
• No Greeks in Ionia: Miletus, for example, is described as Carian (=non-Greek), despite the archaeological record that shows Greeks in Miletus from an early period; this because of Greek legends that wrongly dated the colonization of Ionia to the period long after the Trojan War

Michael Wood: Video

Conclusion:

That there was some sort of Trojan War seems very probable: How else could it be that Troy (=Hisarlik), an insignificant Anatolian site in Homer's day, was

• (1) celebrated in song in this way and
• (2) such a great city in the Mycenean period?

BUT: Homeric poetry is not history, and oral traditions do not preserve very accurate data.

• Mixture of Mycenean &Dark Age materials
• And indeed many archaizing features, designed to lend that flavor of "yesteryear"-- the "Age of Heroes"