Homer and Troy
Homer
Written sometime between 700 and 800 B.C., Trojan war to have taken place 13-11th Centuries BC.
Was Homer real? – Yes, most ancient Greeks believed he was but there is no evidence (he lived in the dark age of Greece…no writing/alphabet, big gap in history, lots of war)
Some people think Homer might have written 1 & 8; his students/followers the Homeroids might have filled in Bks 2-7
Ancient libraries – established by Ptolemy the II (Ptolemy I was trusted general of Alexander, given oversight of Egypt)
The librarians in Alexandria, Egypt published the authoritative volume of Homer’s works.
Troy
(photos brought by Pat Lazaro)
Was in Turkey (great place for a historical tour)
Over half of ancient Greece was in Turkey
Has a replica of the Trojan horse
Layers of history – you can see 9 different eras (Troy of the Iliad was 7th layer?)
RAGE – characteristic of a great book is that the beginning encapsulates the entire story
Online text versions:
Project Gutenberg (many online versions)
Levels of inquiry
Grammar – establish facts
Dialectic – make connections
Rhetoric – form opinions
Grammar Activity
Making puppets of characters (decorated on front, tags on back), we re-enacted the first 8 books in 8 minutes.
Poetic Stucture
Epic poem
In medias res – Greek poems begin in the midst of the action, literary device (starts in the middle of the story), story unfolds through flashback, was started in the 8th century B.C. in Iliad & Odyssey
Dactylic hexameter – dactyl: long short short; hexameter: 6 dactyls per line
Meter could help people remember the story – sing, memorize, hand down
Poet would use different epithets to fit the meter (“white-armed Hera”) – Achilles called “swift of foot” more than 25 times
Repetition – helps poet (he’s thinking of next section coming up), familiar for listener, slight variation helps listener not get bored
Poets/Bards
Poets/bards – were the historians of their time
Evolved over time? What was eventually written down might have been longer than original
Improvise, revise/improve with each telling
Current bards & epic oral poets – Yugoslavia (but they lose the ability to memorize thousands of lines as soon as they learn to read) (see Perry)
Poets honored soldiers by mentioning them
Warfare
Truces – for the gathering of bodies after battle, Diomedes & Glaucus talk before fighting (and then decide not to)
Not everyone revels in war – common soldier not as invested but this was his way of life, missed family after 10 years, dispassionate fighting, needed strong leaders (like Agamemnon and Odysseus) to stir them to fight
Better to die nobly than to live as a coward
Reading—Bk 1:545+
Reading—Bk 2:495+
Gods
Gods are capricious
Eris – goddess of strife/discord
Bkgd:
The wedding of Heleus and Thetis (parents of Achilles)—Eris is not invited so she retaliates by throwing a golden apple labeled “For the Fairest” into the wedding; Hera, Athena, & Aphrodite fight over it; Zeus tells Paris (a mere mortal) to decide; Paris proclaims Aphrodite the winner because she promises him Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world (wikipedia).
Zeus vs. God
False God: Zeus – power trip, talking about hypothetical abilities, capricious, self-serving
True God: God tells Job all the things he’s already done
Outside Resources:
audible.com – subscription to recorded books (pay a fee for buying 1-2 books per month)
Netflix (“Troy” is the Hollywood version of the Iliad)
iTunes University (free lectures – search for Homer; iTunes is a free download)
podcasts
The Teaching Company – lectures on CD and DVD (see separate email on this)
For next time we discuss books 9-16 but if time is short read:
Books 9, 10, 15, 16