Download Gareth Williams Preceptor Notes - Homer 1

Homer: Iliad 1-12
General concerns:
How to deal with practicalities in class such as student involvement (how to encourage it
and curb it); balance between macro-picture of text and attention to verbal detail;
importance of keeping up with the schedule; balance of 'enjoying' text while also
conveying substantial fact about it.
Selected readings that may be useful in class:
Book 1
1.318-25: Agamemnon sends Talthybios and Eurybates to fetch Briseis from Achilles.
1.325-32: They go, but they are in awe of 'king' Achilles. Who's in charge?
1.462-74: feast after Chryseis is returned to Chryses, with emphasis on fair sharing
(contrast Achilles not getting his fair lot from Agamemnon: from here on, Achilles
always in background even if not seen on stage).
Book 2
2.8-15: Zeus to dream: Zeus aims to bring honor to Achilles, by bringing hardship to the
Greeks. So he wishes to lull Agamemnon into attacking. So he aims to send a dream to
Agamemnon, urging him to attack.
2.23-34: In Nestor's likeness the dream comes to Agamemnon, but with crucial shift of
emphasis in 33-4: 'evils are in store for the Trojans/ from Zeus' (ἐκ Διός, 33); but cf. line
15.
2.60-70: Agamemnon reports his dream before Greek counsel, again hardening the
message in line 69-70 'evils are in store for the Trojans/ by Zeus' will' (ἐκ Διός, 70). Note
that the original Greek text is in fact the same in both cases, lines 33 and 70: the effect
we are discussing is in fact an effect of translation, not necessarily an effect of the
original – an interesting talking point when it comes to reflecting on the ‘distortioneffect’ of translation.
2.76-83: The real Nestor endorses Agamemnon's words as 'true'; ironic, given that a false
Nestor contributed to the propagation of the dream.
2.109-118: Agamemnon tests troops by feigning desire to leave Troy; cf. 370ff.
addressing Nestor, Agamemnon is 'persuaded' to stay. So gullible at start of book, he is
now cast as the master of manipulative rhetoric.
2.484ff. Catalogue of ships. How to describe in narrative form the pure enormity of the
struggle?
Book 3
3.30-7: 'godlike' Paris, scared at the sight of Menelaus. 'Godlike'?
3.38-45: Hektor condemns Paris with straight talk (cf. Thersites).
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3.390-4: Aphrodite (as old woman) to Helen as Paris returns. 'You would not think/ that
he came from fighting against a man', and nor in fact has he: he was rescued by
Aphrodite.
3.428-36: Helen to Paris. So scornful in one way, so desperate of voice in another way.
Complex psychological portrayal of Helen.
3.438ff. Paris: such control of narrative when he declares (439) 'This time Menelaos with
Athene's help has beaten me...'. Given the gods’ modus operandi (favoring now one side,
now the other), does Paris offer a genuine alternative in terms of life-philosophy in
advocating ‘seize the human moment; to bed now!’?
Book 4
4.473-87: death of Trojan Simoeisios, so movingly described after the self-preserving
attitude of Paris. True pathos, especially in comparison with poplar-tree used for chariot
wheel made for martial purposes in 482ff.
Book 5
5.703ff. Hektor's killing spree, in conjunction with Ares. This to harden the profile of
Hektor before we see his 'domesticated' side in Book 6.
Book 6
6.318-24: Contrast of Paris-Helen with Hektor-Andromache
6.369-74: Hektor-Andromache: H. goes to Andromache's space but she's not there; she
leaves 'female' space to seek him out, to forge linkage and enhance connection.
6.429-34: Andromache casts Hektor as father, brother etc. Dramatic emphasis here on the
totality of being, fullness of investment, in her linkage with him (contrast Helen/Paris).
6.466-73: Obvious pathos of the parents' loving laughter as Astyanax cries before the
threatening plumage of Hektor's helmet.
Book 7
7.336-43: Nestor advocates Greek construction of a defensive rampart of sorts (reversal
of Troy besieged).
7.348-53: Trojan Antenor, ‘the thoughtful', advocates handing Helen back (cf. Bk. 2,
Greeks keen to leave Troy; Antenor a Trojan Thersites of sorts?).
7.357-64: Paris stands firm, not giving Helen up (cf. Agamemnon's initial refusal to give
Chryseis up, including 1.29 ‘The girl I will not give back’). Greek experience is here
reversed in Trojan experience within the narrative.
7.385-97: Idaios is Trojan envoy. Note how he carefully edits the message that he is sent
to convey about Paris (cf. 362-4, 370-8). He distances Trojans as a whole from Paris'
position in particular.
7.427-32: Greeks and Trojans engage in burial. Common experience; but we've already
been shown their common experience through Greek/Trojan overlaps earlier in the book.
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Book 8
8.212-16: Hektor besieges Greek ships with Zeus' help. Zeus oscillates in support of now
Greeks, now Trojans; narrative oscillates, now showing Greeks in ascendancy, now
Trojans.
Book 9
9.17-22: Agamemnon is apparently resigned to withdrawal from Troy (cf. 2.111-15). But
on this occasion he is apparently not using a ruse (or is he...?).
9.157-61: Agamemnon lays down terms to Achilles.
9.225-51: Odysseus as first speaker during the embassy places stress on Trojan success
(Greeks so need Achilles...); 252-8: Odysseus plays 'dear friend' role.
9.299-306: Odysseus crucially edits Agamemnon's words (cf. 157ff.) to make the terms
more favorable to Achilles, and Achilles is perhaps wise to the ruse, in that he
immediately addresses Odysseus as (308) 'resourceful'.
9. 434ff.: Phoenix plays the grandfather card (437 'dear child', 440, 444).
9.624ff.: Aias is much more direct, with rhetoric of frontal assault.
Book 10
Doloneia: Diomedes and Odysseus as spies, encountering Dolon. He is caught, they
attack Thracians and Rhesus.
Book 11
Agamemnon's aristeia, and also Odysseus, Diomedes and Aias in full, martial action.
11.779-90: Nestor to Patroclus, speaking in the Phoenix-mode of Book 9.
Book 12
Trojans break through Greek wall. After the Greek martial success of Book 11, now
Trojan success: the two books even each other out.
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