Introduction: ‘With What Eyes…?’

Abstract

Abstract The Introduction considers the key concepts ‘divine perspective’, ‘divine audience’ and ‘Homer’s audience’. It discusses parallels and differences between the divine perspectives that Homer depicts (i.e. of the Olympians), and the divine perspective he adopts (as narrator). It asks what it is in the text of the Iliad that has moved so many critics to liken the gods to the ‘audience’ for an arranged, public event of one sort or another. It shows Jasper Griffin’s widely accepted answer—that the gods sometimes watch passively, with pity or pleasure—to be insufficient. It then proposes that a comprehensive study is needed, which will assess how divine viewing relates to divine control, and analyse the way that Homer builds his ‘divine audience’ in association with three culturally specific contexts: the formal duel, the daïs (banquet), and funeral rites. The chapter concludes with a discussion of ‘Homer’s audience’, laying out the study’s basic assumptions about the audience and performer implied by the text.