World of the Hero MS

ILIAD

Homer

GRAZIOSI

Achilles’ anger is ‘exceptional in its intensity and duration’

FELSON & SLATKIN

‘Only after Patroclus’ death do the Greeks reunite as allies’

SILK

‘The gods, by comparison, is aimless and even frivolous’

EDWARDS (the gods, war)

1. Irrational evil comes from the gods

2. Homer sees war as a necessity in human affairs

TSOUTSOUKI (father-son relationships x2)

1. The filial and heroic identity is more intense in Achilles’ case

2. It is incompatible with the warrior society in which it operates

GREENE

The Iliad is ‘a great poem of fatherhood’

JONES (3)

1. The gods are not Homer’s way of describing a mental process

2. Heroic behaviour and its consequences are the central subject of the Iliad

3. Odysseus’ speech is a brilliantly structured rhetorical performance

SCHEIN

Hector is ‘social and human’ while Achilles is ‘inhumanely isolated and demonic’

KAHANE, women

‘Women’s emotional responses…have little or no consequences in action’

ALLAN, war

‘Homer presents the complexities of war’

AENEID

Virgil

WILLIAMS (Aeneas, glorification, Turnus)

1. He is no superhuman figure…he is very much an ordinary mortal

2. One of Virgil’s major intentions was to glorify his own country

3. Turnus does not belong to destiny and he must pay for that

LYNE

it is Aeneas’ relationships that Virgil appears to neglect

HARDIE

Aeneas is forced into a mission by circumstances beyond his control

PARRY (gods, loss)

1. He is always the victim of forces greater than himself’

2. The mood of the Aeneid is one of frustration, loss and sadness)

QUINN (furor, augustus x2, origins of aeneid)

1. Aeneas has surrendered to an impulse that disgraces his humanity

2. Augustus wanted an epic with himself as the hero

3. When everything that is said about Augustus is put together, it amounts to precious little

4. The Aeneid is deeply influenced by Greek Tragedy

SOWERBY (gods, father-son)

1. He emerges as little more than a symbol’

2. [scene 2 finale] expresses what pietas meant for Virgil

PATTIE (fate, Augustus)

1. [deciding to continue on his mission] is due to a series of acts of his own free will

2. The poem is Augustan in its presentation of Roman values

GRIFFIN

Virgil had difficulty in portraying the two sides of Augustan regime at once- as a peacemaker, and as a tyrant

GRANSDEN (peace, juno, heroism)

1. Virgil expresses a sympathy for the young men on both sides

2. Juno embodies the dreadful spirit of civil strife

3. Virgil has transformed the heroic code into something new and wholly Roman

GLOVER

Virgil’s whole nature was on the side of peace

TARRANT

Augustus overruled Virgil’s dying wish to have the Aeneid burned

COWAN

Father-son relationships and suffering are central to the plot

ADLER

War as a necessary intervention in Italy to allow Rome to exist