/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.7904624]

How is the Iliad the cornerstone of Greek culture? Isn't it more a critique of the values and culture of the society of time it takes place in?

I mean, Achilles causes countless deaths because 'muh culture of honour' and his butthurt over Briseis. Thetis even calls him the most miserable of all men. Literally thousands of warriors, the cream of the crop, throw themselves to their deaths for an empty concept of glory.

What am I missing here?

[Anonymous No.7904629]

You're reading it through a modern lens.

[Anonymous No.7904654]

You're sort of right that it's "critical" of the culture's truths, but it's critical in the sense of affirming the necessary tragedy of some of those truths, not rejecting them.

Hubris ("pride goeth before the fall") was a big thing for the Greeks, who also tended to think in terms of recurring cycles. They recognised the inner tragedy of human greatness, which meant recognising its inherent fickleness, its subjection to fickle and often even whimsical fate, and its vulnerability to jealous and easily provoked gods (which are stand-ins for nature, i.e. all-powerful, harsh, indifferent, easily dwarfing man's schemes).

Think about how our culture talks about justice and righteousness and all that, the things that we take as centrally important. We make movies and stories about how they are endangered or degraded, how difficult they are to maintain and how we often fail to maintain them. We depict heroes struggling and even dying to uphold them.

[Anonymous No.7904656]

>>7904629

But the author himself is clearly critical of it all, he expresses it in the Odyssey for example when Odysseus meets Achilles in the underworld and the poet says through Achilles that his glorious death, and the posthumous reputation that follows it, is meaningless, and that he'd have rather lived a long life in poverty or as a slave.

[Anonymous No.7904675]

>>7904656

He's not clearly critical of it all; Homer himself almost never, if ever, makes any judgment on his characters' actions. Achilles is speaking for himself in the underworld there, and there's a good reason why he relents having chosen to live a short and glorious life: he wasn't the hero of the Iliad and did not act honorably. Consider why the Iliad ends with Hektor's death.

[Anonymous No.7904676]

>>7904654

I still don't quite understand how it functions to detail and define Greek culture and society.

When I read the satires of Lucilius, Horace and Juvenal, it was clear how they functioned and what their aim was - i.e. subversively critiquing Roman society, culture and values through the use of sarcasm, irony, parody etc.

How does an Epic like the Iliad function in comparison to this?

[Anonymous No.7904687]

>>7904656
>the author
Are you reading a translation?

[Anonymous No.7904699]

>>7904656
brah, listen to what u reading my dude, he's talking to odysseus, the mother rucking tactician...odysseus who told him to talk the damn cash and go home....meanwhile odysseus sneak out of over situation, and still make it home to live in glory and fuck his wife and raise his son...people are so disgusted by the wickedness of judeo-capitalist war that they don't realize war was not always bad

[Anonymous No.7904703]

>>7904676
>>7904656
You should look up Homer on Wikipedia and learn more about how the poems were composed, and more importantly why and for which audiences they were composed. That will help you a lot. Also look up the Greek Dark Age so you can understand the audience and its priorities more.

Achilles was trapped by fate and necessity between two equally shit choices (another thing the Greeks loved). But again, if you look at the composition of the poem, you can ask questions about why that particular anecdote was included - we can't even say for sure whether it was a common or popular telling of Achilles' fate. Maybe the people who finally wrote down the poems picked that version of the anecdote for a reason lost to us.

[Anonymous No.7904710]

>>7904687

I meant poet. I was going to say Homer but we know it's doubtful the entirety of the two works as we know them today were composed by him, or if he even existed.

[Anonymous No.7904713]

>>7904676
rome was decadent proto-christiani degeneracy, don't compare that sick shit to greece

[Anonymous No.7904717]

>>7904710
people who aren't jewish didn't exist, this is a fact

[Anonymous No.7904731]

>>7904624
Dumb frog poster.

[Anonymous No.7904743]

>>7904703

That was one of the first things I did before reading Homer's works, and it contributed little to my understanding of the social functions of the Iliad and what wisdom it teaches

>>7904713
>>7904717

Please stop shitting up my thread, I'm trying to learn.

[Anonymous No.7904757]

>>7904743
>I'm trying to learn.

then why don't u read a book ya fuckin dummy, or if ur too dumb for that sign up for some university classes somewhere

[Anonymous No.7904759]

>>7904710
>I was going to say Homer but we know it's doubtful the entirety of the two works as we know them today were composed by him, or if he even existed.
If you understand that it might not be the original version or what the exact provenance of it was, why are you questioning its role in Greek society? For all we know, the original version was nothing like what we got and the elements you're confused about might not even have been in it.

[Anonymous No.7904792]

>>7904743
>social functions of the Iliad and what wisdom it teaches

>Consider why the Iliad ends with Hektor's death.

What do you think?

[Anonymous No.7904823]

>>7904624
1. It's an early work and later writers are forced to respond to it. By virtue of it's age it is a cornerstone of culture. Just in the same way the bible is for christian writers.

2. Greeks didn't like the Iliad because they were fans of war and killing. They liked the Iliad because it helped them, as a society, deal with a meaningless world. The gods are capricious- look at how they pick favorites at a whim. Death provides no respite- see Odysseus' katabasis. In such a bleak schema, what is a man to do? Simply asking the question and pointing out the futility of mortality, Homer's work is an accomplishment. There's not much else in the classical world that compares.

3. The Greek really is beautiful. Aesthetically, it's quite an achievement.

[Anonymous No.7904824]

>>7904792

I understand that Hektor conducted himself far better than Achilles. Hektor was thrust into a difficult position by the actions of his brother and father and acted admirably, while Achilles chose to back himself into a difficult corner and acted dishonourably.

That's about as far as my understanding goes, can you spell the rest out for me?

[Anonymous No.7904827]

>>7904823
*Simply by asking

[Anonymous No.7904872]

>>7904823

>1. It's an early work and later writers are forced to respond to it. By virtue of it's age it is a cornerstone of culture. Just in the same way the bible is for christian writers.


I asked why it was considered to be a cornerstone of Greek culture by ancient Greeks themselves, not why it's considered a cornerstone of general Western culture. The number of times Socrates quotes Homer in Plato's works is proof of his popularity in their time.

>2. Greeks didn't like the Iliad because they were fans of war and killing.

I never claimed that was the case, rather the opposite. I read it as a critique of their mythical ancestors values and conceptions of glory, honour and posthumous fame that lead to what Homer clearly portrays as a catastrophic tragedy.

>They liked the Iliad because it helped them, as a society, deal with a meaningless world. The gods are capricious- look at how they pick favorites at a whim.

Are you saying that it presented a worldview for Greek society?

[Anonymous No.7904874]

>>7904824

>I understand that Hektor conducted himself far better than Achilles. Hektor was thrust into a difficult position by the actions of his brother and father and acted admirably, while Achilles chose to back himself into a difficult corner and acted dishonourably.

There you go, and with that in mind go back to what you said about Achilles in the underworld telling Odysseus that he'd prefer to have been alive. He acted extremely dishonorably at times during the Trojan War, specifically when he desecrated Hektor's corpse, and at other times he acted extremely honorably.
So, in the underworld again, is it Homer passing judgment on Achilles, saying that his honor was in vain, or is it more, if anything, his just desserts for not conducting himself honorably with Hektor?

The Iliad ending with Hektor's death makes a couple important points. Foremost among them is that it shows that Homer, to some extent, approves of Hektor's character. We know that Achilles acted dishonorably with Hektor's corpse. We know that he acted honorably with Patroklos. We know that he will die in Troy. Yet in spite of so much focus on Achilles throughout the poem, Hektor's character is the one that shines through. When Achilles returns Hektor's corpse the people of Troy mourn and honor him, showing that it's his character--his ideal--that lives on, whereas Achilles' rage, while initially caused by his outrage at being dishonored, came to be dishonorable itself when he paraded such a great man's corpse around. Nowhere else in the Iliad do you see anything like that, either. People take the armor off of those they slay in order to show their prowess and glory in killing, but none spit on the spirit of a person the way Achilles did.

One last thing: When Hektor duels Aias both conduct themselves in perfect order, and when the fight is broken up they exchange gifts and Hektor says
"These two fought and gave no quarter in close combat, yet they parted friends."

Contrast this to Hektor's duel with Achilles. After they run around Troy three times, according to my notes, Hektor "requests that they form a pact of, no matter who the victor is, the loser should have his body returned to his own people, but Akhilleus vehemently refuses."

Let me know what you think, especially if you disagree with some of it.

[Anonymous No.7904915]

>>7904874

If i remember correctly, when responding to Hektors request for a pact Achilles compares himself to a lion or a wild beast and says there can be no pact between man and beast, showing that he was at this stage aware of his decline into bestial rage, and perhaps even aware of Hektors superior conduct. I can see now why Achilles said what he did in the underworld. I was interpreting it only in the sense that he realized the emptiness of posthumous fame, but it was also because of his dishonourable conduct.

I would agree with everything in your post, but I'm still unable to connect the dots and see what exactly all of this means as a whole.

[Anonymous No.7904940]

>>7904823
>deal with a meaningless world.
Go back to Rddit with your braindead existentialism.

[Anonymous No.7904942]

>>7904915
>but I'm still unable to connect the dots and see what exactly all of this means as a whole.

What I've taken away from the two poems is said in Fitzgerald's Odyssey:

"Fair dealing brings more profit in the end."

The difficulty is understanding what "fair dealing" means in the ancient Greek world, or at least in these poems. In the Iliad it meant not disgracing a corpse. It tells readers/listeners that you ought to act honorably and control your rage, however justified it is, if it would cause you to act dishonorable.
Where we see the difficulty is, I think, mostly when we see Odysseus kill the suitors and women. Is he really justified to kill over a hundred people? Apparently so, but it's challenging to grasp that with our modern ideas.

[Anonymous No.7905001]

>>7904942

I took as much from it myself, and also that knowledge comes through suffering.

But maybe I haven't been articulate enough in my question; What I'm trying to discover is how the Iliad functioned in Greek society. I have some grasp of the views that it propagates, but I seem unable to understand what it is about these views that are particular to ancient Greek society, and how they became so.

For example, through the folly of Agamemnon could the Iliad not be read as a critique of the public power of generals and kings, and thus of that aspect of Greek society? It seems to show the negatives of the values of its characters moreso than detail values which ought to be emulated by society.

[Anonymous No.7906307]

I have nothing to contribute to this thread but I like the idea so bump

[Anonymous No.7906407]

>>7904940
>Please stop shitting up my thread, I'm trying to learn.

[Anonymous No.7906549]

The Iliad is 16000 lines of what it is to be a man. The Iliad came before Classical Greek Culture. Art imitates life and life imitates art. Stories of lives act as templates for lives. The Iliad must be responsible for so much of Greek masculinity

[Anonymous No.7906579]

>>7904940
meaningless world =/= existentialism.

[Anonymous No.7906592]

>>7904654

>affirming the necessary tragedy of some of those truths

Which is why war is variably described as "Man-Enhancing" and "Man-Wasting", I think.

[Anonymous No.7906997]

>>7904874
Didn't Hektor plan to treat Patroklos' corpse in a similar manner though? I'm sure he mentioned that he would feed Patroklos' body to the dogs and birds, words that Achilles would echo later with his treatment of Hektor's corpse, although Hektor doesn't have a chance to act on his words.

[Anonymous No.7907043]

>>7904874

>>7904915
> he was at this stage aware of his decline into bestial rage

I read a very compelling explanation for the actions of Achilles in Fagles introduction.

Achilles is a god-like warrior, and with that comes his god-like self absorption. All the gods are so petty and parochial, and in the same way Achilles thinks of nothing but his honour and is eternally spiteful like a god.

Meanwhile Hector not only thinks of honour, but his duty, his country, his family. He is much more human, but that is what makes him great. Achilles isn't declining into some beast, he is a god in decline toward humanity. His dealings with Priam represent this transformation.

I've always liked this interpretation because it shows that though the gods are deathless and powerful, mortals are in many ways greater. Their actions have greater consequence because they must face death. The gods fighting on the battlefield and then crying to Zeus about being hurt is pretty funny.

[Anonymous No.7908135]

Bump for good thread.

[Anonymous No.7908184]

>>7907043

That's actually a perfect interpretation. One thing I'd add/amend is that Achilles is not fully godlike like the gods are, being only half a god, which helps explain why he acted so nobly with Patroklos but so poorly elsewhere.

[Anonymous No.7908237]

>>7906997

Book 16, Fitzgerald's translation

Then Patroklos,
disabled by the god's [Apollo's] blow and the spear wound,
moved back to save himself amid his men.
But Hektor, seeing that his brave adversary
tried to retire, hurt by the spear wound, charged
straight at him through the ranks and lunged for him
low in the flank, driving the spearhead through.
He crashed, and all Akhaian troops turned pale.
Think how a long in his pride brings down
a tireless boar; magnificently they fight
on a mountain crest for a small gushing spring--
both in desire to drink-- and by sheer power
the lion conquers the great panting boar:
that was the way the son of Priam, Hektor,
closed with Patroklos, son of Menoitios,
killer of many, and took his life away.

Then, glorying above him, he addressed him: "Easy to guess, Patroklos, how you swore
to ravage Troy, to take the sweet daylight
of liberty from our women and to drag them
off in ships to your own land--you fool!
Between you and those women there is Hektor's
war team, thundering out to fight! My spear
has pride of place among the Trojan warriors,
keeping their evil hour at bay.
The kits will feed on you, here on this field.
Poor devil, what has that great prince Akhilleus
done for you? He must have told you often
as you were leaving and he stayed behind,
"Never come back to me, to the deep sea ships,
Patroklos, till you cut to rags
the bloody tunic on the chest of Hektor!'
That must have been the way he talked, and won
your mind to mindlessness."

In a low faint voice,
Patroklos, master of horse, you answered him:
"This is your hour to glory over me,
Hektor. The Lord Zeus and Apollo gave you
the upper hand and put me down with ease.
They stripped me of my arms. No one else did.
Say twenty men like you had come against me,
all would have died before my spear.
No, Leto's son and fatal destiny
have killed me; if we speak of men, Euphorbos.
You were in third place, only in at the death.
I'll tell you one thing more; take it to heart.
No long life is ahead for you. This day
your death stands near, and your immutable end,
at Prince Akhilleus' hands."

Patroklos then dies, and Hektor responds asking why he should prophesy his death, when Hektor could very well come out the victor over Akhilleus. Then, to finish off the book is:

At this he pulled his spearhead from the wound,
setting his heel upon him; then he pushed him
over on his back, clear of the spear,
and lifting it at once sought Automedon,
companion of the great runner Akihlleus,
longing to strike him. But the immortal horses,
gift of the gods to Peleus, bore him away.

-----

So this is the battle between Hektor and Patroklos. I don't think they ever meet elsewhere in the Iliad, but if they do, or even if not and Hektor did indeed say that he would do similar things to Patroklos' body that Achilles did to his, he did not act on it, but instead treated his corpse with the exact same reverence that everybody else does, except Achilles.

[Anonymous No.7908254]

>>7907043

>>7908184
Again, one more thing I want to add going off of that interpretation. It sounds like, and I think I can see this in hindsight, that because Achilles is half-god, half-mortal, all of his qualities are exaggerated quite a lot. His loving qualities towards Patroklos, for example, results in him going crazy by murdering and disgracing Hektor, but he also wants to pay homage to his friend to the extent that he does, with many contests, boys, and so on.
Is he really a god in decline toward humanity though? His dealings with Priam are certainly significant, but do they show a transformation (from god to mortal), or do they show that he's a multifaceted guy? I would go with the latter because of his reaction to Patroklos dying and their friendship throughout--the fact that they're established as already being great friends shows that there is a very human side to Achilles that isn't evident in the gods. The closest we could say to a god truly loving a man, I think, is Athena in the Odyssey, but if Odysseus were to die can we really support saying that she would treat his death in the same way Achilles treats Patroklos'?

[Anonymous No.7908279]

This thread is full of idiots, jesus christ

[Anonymous No.7908281]

>>7904624
Another thing is that while Achilles is considered a hero, the word in the classical world has a different meaning than the contemporary equivalent, where it has such a strong association with morality.

[Anonymous No.7908303]

>>7908279

Feel free to join in the discussion

[Anonymous No.7908327]

>>7908279
Would you like to make a point explaining why the interpretations offered are unsatisfactory or would you like to just petulantly name-call?

[Anonymous No.7908346]

>>7908327
I would like to just petulantly name-call

you idiot

[Anonymous No.7908424]

Greek culture was way past the culture of honour and shit like that. The Illiad is a tale of ancient times even for the greeks, it showed them their golden age and what not but was profoundly critical of Achilles's way of life.
The description of the shield shows a "modern" greek culture in which the problems are no longer defined by war but by "legal" terms.
Also, Ajax a shit

[Anonymous No.7910477]

>>7908424
>The description of the shield shows a "modern" greek culture in which the problems are no longer defined by war but by "legal" terms.

Does Achilles wielding the shield and us knowing that he'll die say that he's going to usher in that more peaceful, "legal" culture?