Homeric Epics Research Articles

An intriguing fragment of pre-hippocratic medicine in Aeschylus.

Information scattered in several passages of Greek tragedies of the 5th century BC contributes to our knowledge of pre-Hippocratic medicine and throws light on the cultural background of the Hippocratic writers. In this regard, the work of Aeschylus is noteworthy, because it contains fragments of an ideal-conjectural conception preceding the empirical approach based on observation and experience. The idealized meaning attributed to the term muupsilonepsilonlambdaóç (marrow), compared with both Homeric epics and Hippocratic writings, represents a reliable index of the evolution of the ancient medical thought.

Apathy: the democratic disease

This essay turns to ancient sources in order to rethink the relationship between political apathy and democracy. If modern democratic theorists place political apathy entirely outside of democracy – either as a destructive limit upon the full realization of a democratic polity, or, more sanguinely, as a pragmatic necessity which tempers democracy so that it may function in a workable yet watered-down form – the ancients conceived of political apathy as a peculiarly democratic phenomenon that was likely to flourish in tandem with the expansion of egalitarian institutional structures and moral ideas. Evidence for the ancient recognition of political apathy as a uniquely democratic kind of affliction centers on, but is not limited to, three main sources. In literature, the Homeric epic, and specifically the story of Achilles, present apathy for politics and commitment to human equality as synonymous forces. In philosophy, one of the main reasons Plato opposes the democratic regime is precisely that it engenders apathy among the citizenry. And in history, Herodotus’ account of the first debate on constitutions as well as the ancient democratic practice of election by lot reveal an ancient egalitarian interest in using democracy to quell, rather than encourage, political behavior.

The Voice of Thersites: Reflections on the Origins of the Idea of Equality

In the first century BC the Greek historian Diodorus Siculus observed that there were kings before the discovery of writing. ' Diodorus was right: the shared reflection about the human condition made possible by writing emerged in societies where distinctions between ruler and ruled, man and woman, master and slave, lord and commoner, and finally native and foreigner constituted the deep normality of social life. No wonder that so much of early social and political thought consists of justifications of inequality. Powerful discourses of inequality told everyone what their station in life was and instructed them to speak and behave accordingly.What is truly remarkable, viewed against this background, is the emergence of ideas of equality. Why and how did people arrive at the daring and implausible idea that men are equal? In the history of political thought this question is usually discussed in the context of the advent of democratic rule in the Greek polis, that is, in a situation in which the demos is already constituted as a political actor. To constitute itself politically, however, the people or its spokesmen must already command a language in which the claim of equality can be expressed. In this essay I seek to retrieve the origins of that language, the historical moment when equality became thinkable in a setting in which the politicized demos had not yet appeared on the horizon. I will examine the famous Thersites episode in Homer's Iliad to show how this could happen, but my argument goes beyond the case of Homer. In the conclusion of this essay I will outline a general framework for the analysis of the interplay between social experiences, available languages, and the origins of ideas of equality.Equality was not an empirical idea.2 Quite the contrary, the numbing repetition of the daily routines of inequality would seem to make it almost unthinkable, in the same category as black suns and men walking upside down. In such circumstances where was there space for the very thought of equality? How could it even find a voice amidst the deafening roar of kings, priests, and aristocrats? That simple question is my starting point.1 will approach this question by means of an equally simple conjecture. Ideas of equality emerge when men or women draw on the egalitarian potentialities of available shared languages, and they do so to make sense of and to change or sustain determinate social experiences. Notions of equality do not arise out of the blue. They usually take the form of a critique of prevailing ideas about the superiority of some people above others. In that sense every discourse of equality is grafted upon some previously articulated discourse of inequality. All discourses of equality are potentially egalitarian because equality, as an idea, consists in the belief that things can be alike and when alike should receive similar treatment.3 When somebody asserts that we are in some relevant sense like them, the very utterance of the claim implies a questioning of the given relationship between us and them.Where to begin our investigation? I start from the assumption that civilizations are, among other things, defined by the texts on which they confer canonical status. That is not to say that such texts are unquestionable or that their message is unequivocal. Canonical texts are not simply commands or prescriptions, they rather provide the master narratives and exemplary stories later authors draw upon to formulate authoritative interpretations. The major canonical texts of civilizations can usefully be seen as the stepping stones leading to the main interpretative traditions. The Homeric epics, the Hebrew Bible, the New Testament, the Qur'an, and the Analects of Confucius are outstanding examples of such canonical texts. The first step in our investigation is therefore an examination of such texts, looking for critiques of inequality as well as implicit or explicit notions of equality. …

Feasting in Homeric Epic

Feasting plays a central role in the Homeric epics. The elements of Homeric feasting-values, practices, vocabulary, and equipment-offer interesting comparisons to the archaeological record. These comparisons allow us to detect the possible contribution of different chronological periods to what appears to be a cumulative, composite picture of around 700 B.C. Homeric drinking practices are of particular interest in relation to the history of drinking in the Aegean. By analyzing social and ideological attitudes to drinking in the epics in light of the archaeological record, we gain insight into both the prehistory of the epics and the prehistory of drinking itself.

Near Eastern Sources for the Palace of Alkinoos

The last quarter century of archaeological discoveries have significantly enriched and nuanced our understanding of interactions between the Greek world and the Levant during the Greek Archaic period (conventionally defined as 776–479 B.C.E.). They have also allowed us to construct an increasingly detailed model explaining the diffusion of knowledge from Mesopotamia to Greece at this time. In addition, advances in our understanding of oral cultures, and the role of oral narrative traditions within them have cast valuable new light on the ways in which the Homeric epics appropriate, adapt, and preserve cultural knowledge. The palace of Alkinoos, described in Book 7 of the Odyssey, poses an interesting problem for archaeologists and Homerists alike, in that it departs significantly from the generalized, or "formulaic," image of a Homeric palace and, moreover, departs equally from Bronze and Iron Age Greek architecture. In order to account for anomalous features such as these, one must always take into account the narrative function and context of the description, which in this case suggests a possible Near Eastern origin. Archaeological evidence not only confirms the possibility, but allows us to take the comparison further: although some of its features doubtless belonged to a stereotypical Greek image of Near Eastern palaces, the description is sufficiently detailed and coherent that we can identify Assyrian palatial architecture as the chief prototype of the palace of Alkinoos.

The journalist's right to information in time of war and on dangerous missions

It is commonplace to say that we live in an age of instantaneous information and communication. During the occupation of Iraq by the United States and its allies, pictures taken in the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad and showing members of the US Armed Forces and Iraqi detainees in disgraceful circumstances could be seen within minutes all over the world. The message carried by those pictures changed the discourse on the Iraq war of 2003–2004.We have become used to instant information through real-time reporting on events occurring in the various corners of the world. This flow of news is taken for granted, and we expect our favourite radio or TV station to deliver the latest news at every moment of the day. Seeing pictures taken inside a well-guarded prison in a war a few thousand kilometres away is no longer a surprise.Wars have always attracted writers eager to report on what happens when men fight against men. Some of these reports have become immortal works of world literature. Some may even have influenced the course of history. Only a few memorable examples are Homer's epic poem on the fall of Troy, Julius Caesar'sDe bello gallicoor the Indian epicMahabharata. On a different level, who knows that Winston Churchill, at the age of 25, was a war correspondent reporting from the Boer War in 1899?An accidental war correspondent deserves to be mentioned here, Henry Dunant, who happened to witness the aftermath of a particularly murderous battle, the Battle of Solferino in northern Italy in 1859.

"Prodige a voir": Recherches comparatives sur l'origine casuelle de l'infinitif en grec ancien (review)

Reviewed by: «Prodige à voir» Recherches comparatives sur l’origine casuelle de l’infinitif en grec ancien by Sylvie Vanséveren Andrew Miles Byrd «Prodige à voir» Recherches comparatives sur l’origine casuelle de l’infinitif en grec ancien. By Sylvie Vanséveren. Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2000. Pp. 188. ISBN: 90-429-0835-1. $19.18. It has long been supposed that Proto-Indo-European (PIE) did not have an infinitive, and a myriad of different forms attested in the Indo-European (IE) languages seems to support this. Consequently, one may suppose that these various forms are innovations of the individual IE languages. In this book, Sylvie Vanséveren examines the forms and usages of the Greek (Gk) infinitive with respect to corresponding forms in other IE languages and attempts to create a more coherent view of the original state of affairs. By examining and thereby refuting the methodologies of past scholars, V demonstrates that the only way to create a realistic view of the situation is from both a morphological and syntactic perspective. She accomplishes this in four well-organized chapters: ‘ “Infinitif”: Esquisse méthodologique’ (11–34), ‘Perspective morphologique’ (35–73), ‘Perspective syntaxique’ (74–133), and ‘Conclusions’ (134–46). As she examines the possible morphological origins of the Greek infinitive, V attempts to show that many of the current theories are ad hoc. For example, it is frequently assumed that the origins of infinitives such as -ein (< *-e-hen [*ser/n]), -men (*mer/n) lie in a case designated by many as a ‘locatif sans désinence’ (this type is seen in Gk he≃mar ‘by day’, Sanskrit udán ‘in water’, and Hittite dagan ‘on the earth’). V has great difficulty in understanding how an infinitive may have arisen in a locative form, but one need look no further than the usage of ‘in understanding’ in my last clause to see how it may have come about. V maintains her opposition to a locatival source, but never establishes a satisfactory argument against it. To dispel this notion even further, one should note that Vedic Sanskrit possesses a number of clear instances of locative infinitives (e.g. forms in -sani). Possibly the most interesting aspect of V’s research involves the imperatival usage of the infinitive in Greek and in other dialects. In some IE languages, it is only found in the oldest texts (e.g. Vedic); in others, it occurs only in very restricted contexts (e.g. Latin, where its use is limited to certain technical texts), and in some languages it does not occur at all (e.g. Armenian). The use of the infinitive as a singular second person future imperative is quite common in Greek, whereas a noninfinitival form in *-tōd is more usually found in languages such as Sanskrit and Latin. This archaic usage of the infinitive as an imperative in some of the older IE dialects provides another sort of evidence that the infinitive did indeed exist at a certain state of PIE. Following her discussion, V has included tables of the frequency and the locations of infinitival usages in the Homeric epics as well as indices of sources, key terms, and modern authors. By paying close attention to both morphology and syntax, V has made a great contribution not only to the study of the Greek infinitive, but also to Indo-European linguistics as a whole. Copyright © 2003 Linguistic Society of America

CONVERSATIONS WITH INTERNAL OBJECTS: FAMILY AND NARRATIVE STRUCTURE IN HOMER'S ODYSSEY

ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to enable the psychoanalytic reader to make an enriched emotional contact with Homer's ancient epic which, in recounting the story of Odysseus’journey homeward after the confusions of the Trojan war, demonstrates the evolution of a new ethics based on communication between the internal objects of the protagonists. Athena plays a facilitating role in adjusting the relationship of father and son, husband and wife. The reading is guided by the internal poetic structure, under the aegis of a post‐Kleinian perspective on the reading process which has a clinical analogy.

Prizes from the Borderlands

What is “the state of the art” as regards the study of literature and oral tradition? That question will have as many answers as there are people to respond. The point most worth making may be that though the battle was lost, the war has been won. By “the battle,” what I mean is the heroic attempt made by Milman Parry, Albert B. Lord, and many other scholars during the mid-twentieth century to determine the mode of composition, whether oral or written, of the Homeric epics, Beowulf, and works of a similar character deriving from the ancient or medieval world. By “the war,” what I mean is the general effort to understand such works as examples of a kind of literary production that, while differing markedly from what most people in English departments are accustomed to thinking of as literature, has much in common with texts from various parts of the world that have been recorded through literate persons’ interventions into the ongoing practices of an oral tradition. When texts of that latter kind are examined, they are often found to represent a kind of literature that has never existed before. They are hybrid texts whose character is deeply affected both by the normal practice of oral poetry and by the special conditions that are inherent in the process of collection and publication. The text may display all of the rhetorical features that are normally associated with oral composition, and it may be a showcase of modes of thought that are characteristic of a dominantly nonliterate mentality. In addition, however, the text may be longer than a record of a corresponding oral poem performed in an ordinary setting would ever be. Its narrative style may be more leisurely and its degree of ornamentation more elaborate. Some elements of a literate mentality (for example, a desire for architectural balance or inner consistency) may enter into the text as well. In short, such a text is a tertium quid: a new type of literature that has arisen as a kind of prize, displayed in the public arena after having been captured in the borderlands where literacy meets orality. It is that kind of orally derived poem that seems to provide the best analogy for

Homer in the New Testament?The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. Dennis R. MacDonald

Previous articleNext article No AccessReview ArticleHomer in the New Testament? The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark. Dennis R. MacDonald Margaret M. MitchellMargaret M. Mitchell Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of Religion Volume 83, Number 2Apr., 2003 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/491279 Views: 19Total views on this site Citations: 3Citations are reported from Crossref Copyright 2003 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports the following articles citing this article:Fergus J. King Hit or Myth? Methodological Considerations in Comparing Dionysos with the Johannine Jesus, Biblical Theology Bulletin: Journal of Bible and Culture 51, no.22 (Apr 2021): 88–100.https://doi.org/10.1177/0146107921997108Margaret M. Mitchell, Frances M. Young The Cambridge History of Christianity, (Mar 2008).https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521812399Margaret M. Mitchell The emergence of the written record, (Jan 2006): 175–194.https://doi.org/10.1017/CHOL9780521812399.010

The Wrath of Hesiod: Angry Homeric Speeches and the Structure of Hesiod's Works and Days

The structure of Hesiod's Works and Days has long puzzled classical scholars, in part because the poem is not held together by an overarching narrative, but instead is composed of a single speech. In this paper I find an explanation for the structure of Works and Days in the arrangements of several angry speeches in the Homeric epics, in particular Menelaus' speech to Euphorbus (Il. 17.18-32), and I argue that this structure serves a particular rhetorical purpose, which is to persuade the external audience to side with Hesiod in his dispute with his brother and the kings of Ascra.

Major Poems of the Hebrew Bible: At the Interface of Prosody and Structural Analysis . Volume Two: 85 Psalms and Job 4-14 (review)

The Jewish Quarterly Review, XCIII, Nos. 3-4 (January-April, 2003) 653-660 J. P. Fokkelman. Major Poems of the Hebrew Bible: At the Interface of Prosody and Structural Analysis. Volume Two: 85 Psalms and Job 4-14. Studia Semitica Neerlandica 41. Assen: Van Gorcum, 2000. Pp. vii + 550. Fokkelman opens Chapter 1 with a statement on prosody: "Prosody is about the pains a poet takes about proportions. And proportions is the thing for which the poet has developed a special sense, at all levels of the text" (p. 9). Thus, according to Fokkelman, the one who assumes the task of interpreting poetry takes on the task of studying the "proportions" of poetry and striving for precision to the smallest detail. Major Poems of the Hebrew Bible, vol. 2 is exactly that. It is a monumental undertaking. Fokkelman , through a method of detailed and meticulous counting of the syllables of words, cola, and strophes, presents a prosodie and structural analysis of eighty-five psalms and eleven chapters of the Book of Job. He describes his approach: ". . . to present a short description for every poem, by way of accounting for three manifestations and levels of prosody: syllable totals, colometric division, and structure or composition of the poem as a whole" (pp. 42-43). He says he will not give interpretations of the texts: "I am aiming at a compact description, and renounce my ambition to provide text interpretations. I will have to limit myself and will concentrate on prosody and its various levels" (p. 43). The book has three chapters. Chapter 1, "Syllables, Colometrics, and Structural Analysis," gives an overview of Fokkelman's theory and method, and the problems inherent in counting pre-Masoretic syllables and determining the boundaries of cola. It explains how syllable counting can reveal the structure of the poem. Chapter 2, "A Structural and Prosodie Description of 85 Psalms (83 poems)," is a 270-page analysis of chosen psalms. The psalms are given classifications according to those whose average is a round number, without any change in the BHS text, those whose average is a round number "after the text has undergone a minimal correction in the Massoretic tradition" (p. 48), those with a round average after slight changes were made based on linguistic, structural, or poetic grounds, and those that do not have a round number of syllables per colon. A round number is the number of syllables divided by the number of cola, which come to an average without decimals or fractions. Chapter 3 performs a similar type of analysis of the poems of Job 4-14. There are three appendices. The first and major appendix presents a comprehensive compilation of the syllable count for each word, colon, verse, strophe, stanza, section, and poem, and the average number of syllables per colon. As the student of Homer's epics needs to be aware of dactylic hexameter and the reader of Shakespeare's sonnets iambic pentameter, so too, 654THE JEWISH QUARTERLY REVIEW Fokkelman says, must the student of Biblical Hebrew poetry be aware of its prosodie pattern. However, Fokkelman works from the premise that the poem's prosodie pattern does not lie in its meter, but that syllable counts were used as a structural device: "The poets of the Psalms and Job counted their syllables. They did not put the totals (or words, cola, verses, and strophes) at the service of metrics, but rather used these structurally, in interaction with the construction of the poem, so that the figures often form patterns at the levels of colon, verse, and strophe, and sometimes even at the level of the poem as a whole" (p. 383). It is not by coincidence, the author claims, that when one counts the syllables in the poems of the psalms and divides them by the number of cola, one comes up with averages of seven, eight, or nine syllables. The figures are not always round numbers. Some are averages with decimal points. However, Fokkelman has found that more than half the psalms have an exact integer. About half of this group has 8.00 as the norm; the other half has either 7.00 or 9.00. The norm for Job is...

The cultural biography of material goods in Homer's epics

Je souhaite dans cet article revenir sur la contribution que l'archéologie peut apporter à l'étude de la poésie homérique. Après quelques remarques sur les possibilités des contributions archéologiques, je présenterai une étude de cas qui traite de la « biographie culturelle » des biens matériels dans les épopées homériques. J'espère que ce type d'approche, qui emprunte ses concepts et ses idées à l'archéologie et aux sciences sociales, peut s'avérer comme représentant une nouvelle direction dans l'analyse du rôle et de la signification de la culture matérielle dans l'Iliade et dans l'Odyssée.

Le catastérisme chez Homère. Le cas d'Orion

Since the Homeric epics, Orion has been quoted altogether as a hero of ancient times and as a constellation. In Homer's epics he is the only hero who is in such a situation. The epics quote a lot of constellations, but only as such. The poet doesn't mention explicitly the transformation of the hero into constellation. However the dubble function exercized by Orion makes implicite that the poet knew it. His silence may be due to the fact that he had no opportunity to mention it, but he's reluctant to show extraordinary deeds. The knowledge and observation of the stars was especially important in the herds and cultivators's world, world which is depicted in the homeric comparisons and which is the world in which Homer himself has lived. Orion as a constellation appears especially in the comparisons. The etymology of Orion's name suggest that it was a constellation characteristic of summer. This etymology is confirmed by the fact of the heliacal rise of Orion, which is more or less at the summer's solstice, For the ancient Greeks, summer is a period which is good for harvesting and vintaging, but which is also a period of excessive heat which produces feavers and other illnessess. Orion's constellation seems to produce in the world a dubble reaction : happiness for the given benefits and anxiety for the susci- tated misfortunes. This reaction could be very ancient. The myth will see in Orion a hero as ambiguous in his action as the constellation in its effects. Either Orion, hero of the primeveal times, represents in someway a new humanity, either he is a excessive hunter who has the prétention to keep down and to destroy all the wild animals on earth, in fact everything which is characteristic of Artemis' sphere. He is falling in love with the goddess or is in conflict with her, and in any situation Orion is killed.

Le livre X de l'Iliade

II libro X dell'Iliade è l'unico del poema la cui appartenenza al «corpo » originario dell'Iliade sia stata, fin dall'antichità, messa in dubbio : secondo Pinterpretazione « tradizionale » sarebbe stato inserito nel poema al tempo di Pisistrato. Attuando una riconsiderazione délie testimonianze antiche e una revisione dei vari problemi esegetici e linguistici, affiancate dall'uso délie fond iconografiche ed antropologiche, s'intende dimostrare l'autenticità e il valore di questo libro, che si puo considerare come appartenente al tessuto originario dell'epica «omerica».

Introduction

Chacun de nous . . . rencontre, au début de sa course, un monstre qui dresse devant lui telle énigme qui nous puisse empêcher d'avancer. André Gide, Oedipe1 This issue of Arethusa is a "special issue" in more than one way. It gathers together articles from a distinguished group of international Homeric scholars, continuing Arethusa's long-standing tradition of publishing volumes comprised of articles devoted to a particular theme, in this case, Epos and Mythos: Language and Narrative in Homeric Epic. It is special in another way, though, for it is our chance to honor John J. Peradotto, who served Arethusa first as associate editor for seven years and then as editor-in-chief for another twenty. Jack was there at the birth of Arethusa in 1968, when he was a member of the founding editorial board under Arethusa's first editor-in-chief, Charles Garton. J. P. Sullivan served next, and was succeeded by Jack, who held the post from 1975 until 1995. He remains an associate editor. Like the proverbial mother bear who licks her cubs into shape, Jack guided the growth and development of Arethusa. It became a venue for scholarship that, certainly in the early years of the journal, would have had a hard time finding a place in other classics journals. Feminist scholarship, Marxist criticism, structuralism and post-structuralism, Bakhtinian dialogics, critical theory--these and other forms of scholarship to which classics [End Page 1] proved resistant for many years found a home in, and a voice through, Arethusa when there was nowhere else to go. As Jack himself remarked, "Some people friendly to the mission of Arethusa, and even some not so friendly, have said that it required some rebelliousness to take the risks that resulted in the kind of history the journal has had." That streak of rebelliousness, a disciplined mind, and endless curiosity are the hallmarks of Jack Peradotto's editorship of Arethusa. The same qualities inform his own scholarship, which the papers assembled in this volume celebrate. Always lucidly written and rigorously logical, his articles and books have influenced a whole generation of scholars and helped shape our critical discourse, particularly in the area that this volume represents, Homeric studies. His 1990 book, Man in the Middle Voice: Name and Narration in the Odyssey, reflects his fascination with language and meaning, and has been widely reviewed and even more widely cited. That it has, on occasion, been singled out for attack is itself a sign of its influence and centrality to the field. On April 14 and 15, 2000, a conference, Epos and Mythos, was held at the University at Buffalo to honor Jack Peradotto's scholarship; the papers in this volume originated at that conference. Scholars from a wide range of backgrounds, representing a broad spectrum of methodological approaches to the Homeric epics, came together to focus on two of Jack's long-standing interests: language and narrative. Linguistic analysis, anthropology, sociology, cultural studies, narratology, Dumézil's tri-partite theory of Indo-European societies, and post-structuralism--a variety of approaches are deployed to analyze key issues in Homeric epic: prophecy, theology, social structure, kinship ties, character and persona, truth and fiction. The papers in this collection, in all their variety, are an appropriate tribute to the wide-ranging intellectual curiosity, the erudition, the discipline, and the subtle wit of Jack Peradotto's scholarship. Lector, laetaberis.

Thalassophobia and Geolatry: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre and the Geography of Virtue

Opinions are divided on the generic character of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre's Paul et Virginie. From the author himself, who calls it a pastorale without explaining why and then compares it to Homeric epics, to Jean Fabre, who sees it as an approximation of pastoral, to Jean-Michel Racault, who finds its Utopian pretensions lacking, to Lieve Spaas, who sees in Bernardin's fictional Mauritius a paradise at odds with its native sexuality, critical views abound and readings multiply but provide very few definite answers.' What sort of pastoral is it, after all, where slaves are bought and sold and chaste heroines drown? For my purposes, I should like to draw on past interpretations to read Bernardin as a moralist and Paul et Virginie as an exemplary tale, offering a quasi-religious orientation and something like a moral prescription for a better world. In doing so I am following the example of Malcolm Cook, who has made a persuasive case for a religious reading of Paul et Virginie, but here I would like to suggest that the religion in question is more pagan, almost pre-Socratic, than Christian, and idolizes the land rather than Christ.

Review: The Homeric Epic and the Gospel of Mark

Review: The Homeric Epic and the Gospel of Mark

Ein, “Grundschatz aller Kunst”: Goethe und die Vossische Homer-Übersetzung

In the reception of Graeco-Roman antiquity during the 18th and early 19th centuries, the Homeric epics and their translations played an important role. Goethe, himself a lifelong admirer of Homer, studied intensively the translation by Johann Heinrich Voss, which in the realm of the German tongue was quickly to gain the stature of a ‘classic’ in its own right. Between Goethe and Voss there existed many fundamental agreements but also obvious differences. Despite certain reservations on matters of detail, Goethe increasingly valued Voss's translations of theOdyssey (1781, revised 1793) and of theIliad (1793), recognized them as models of translation in general, and showed their influence in his own poems and his translations. Especially in the rendition of Homeric similes in hisAuszug aus der Ilias [Excerpts from the Iliad] of 1820/21 did he base himself on Voss's translations.

The Iliad as Ethical Thinking: Politics, Pity, and the Operation of Esteem 1

Plato’s banishment of Homer from his philosophic republic is well known. The problem with the Homeric epic for Plato is that it imitates phenomenal appearance (phainomena) as it depicts the shadowy world of human action. Unlike Homer, whose art can tell us nothing about how to live because it merely imitates what we already do, the philosophic craft, as it draws its inspiration from the contemplation of truth, is capable of producing political judgments about what conduct makes individuals better or worse (599d). Overlaying this Platonic argument in modern times is a Kantian distinction between “pure moral philosophy” and other precepts that “may be only empirical and thus belong to anthropology” (Kant 1959.5). Moral philosophy is seen as derived from abstract and universal principles that impose a categorical duty on humans. Empirical precepts, such as norms of behavior or even ethics, are seen as culturally grounded and, thus, not critically reflective. Applied to the Homeric world, this distinction underlies a view, still very much a part of scholarship, of Homeric individuals as conforming