Marco Fantuzzi
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199603626
- eISBN:
- 9780191746321
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603626.001.0001
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
The Iliad is a poem whose events revolve around the “anger” of Achilles, and his personal fierceness and pursuit of glory remain, despite different and more complex nuances, the prevailing features ...
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The Iliad is a poem whose events revolve around the “anger” of Achilles, and his personal fierceness and pursuit of glory remain, despite different and more complex nuances, the prevailing features of his characterization. This book proposes to investigate how different literary authors and visual artists at different periods responded to Achilles' “erotic life”, an aspect about which the Iliadwas almost completely silent. Achilles' loves expose a crack in the usually self-assured attitude of the hero, demonstrating the limits of epic heroism and the epic vision of the world. As such, these moments of erotic “weakness” became perfect manifestos for reuse in other genres, such as tragedy and the various forms of love poetry, in which themes of love and passion were more customary than in heroic epic.Less
The Iliad is a poem whose events revolve around the “anger” of Achilles, and his personal fierceness and pursuit of glory remain, despite different and more complex nuances, the prevailing features of his characterization. This book proposes to investigate how different literary authors and visual artists at different periods responded to Achilles' “erotic life”, an aspect about which the Iliadwas almost completely silent. Achilles' loves expose a crack in the usually self-assured attitude of the hero, demonstrating the limits of epic heroism and the epic vision of the world. As such, these moments of erotic “weakness” became perfect manifestos for reuse in other genres, such as tragedy and the various forms of love poetry, in which themes of love and passion were more customary than in heroic epic.
Niall Rudd
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781904675488
- eISBN:
- 9781781385043
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781904675488.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
Previously published in Classical Philology 75 (1980) 68-69, this is a note on ‘hunc’ in Epistles 1.2 line 13 arguing that the man of passion must be Achilles, not Agamemnon.
Previously published in Classical Philology 75 (1980) 68-69, this is a note on ‘hunc’ in Epistles 1.2 line 13 arguing that the man of passion must be Achilles, not Agamemnon.
Marco Fantuzzi
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780199603626
- eISBN:
- 9780191746321
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199603626.003.0003
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval
Achilles' almost consistent silence about his feelings for Briseis is investigated through the lens of the Hellenistic interpreters of Homer, who appear to downplay the few sentimental phrases ...
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Achilles' almost consistent silence about his feelings for Briseis is investigated through the lens of the Hellenistic interpreters of Homer, who appear to downplay the few sentimental phrases Achilles utters about Briseis and magnifying her love for him. This perspective of the Hellenistic scholars is also reflected in Ovid's “Heroids” 3, where the loving Briseis is confronted with a completely chilly Achilles, and is later developed by other authors of Latin elegy, including Ovid himself, who create a full-love story of Achilles and Briseis. The rich iconography of this love story in the Imperial age is also investigated.Less
Achilles' almost consistent silence about his feelings for Briseis is investigated through the lens of the Hellenistic interpreters of Homer, who appear to downplay the few sentimental phrases Achilles utters about Briseis and magnifying her love for him. This perspective of the Hellenistic scholars is also reflected in Ovid's “Heroids” 3, where the loving Briseis is confronted with a completely chilly Achilles, and is later developed by other authors of Latin elegy, including Ovid himself, who create a full-love story of Achilles and Briseis. The rich iconography of this love story in the Imperial age is also investigated.
Dennis R. MacDonald
- Published in print:
- 2003
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300097702
- eISBN:
- 9780300129892
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300097702.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Literature
This chapter begins with the first book of the Iliad, according to which, in the ninth year of the Trojan War, Apollo destroyed many Greeks to punish Agamemnon, their commander, for having taken ...
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This chapter begins with the first book of the Iliad, according to which, in the ninth year of the Trojan War, Apollo destroyed many Greeks to punish Agamemnon, their commander, for having taken captive the daughter of Apollo's priest. To avert the plague, Agamemnon begrudgingly freed the girl and, in her place, took to his tent Achilles's beloved concubine Briseis. Enraged, Achilles withdrew from the war and asked his mother, Thetis, to implore Zeus to punish Agamemnon. The king of the gods thus decided to send him a “destructive dream.” Hera, Zeus's wife, stiffly opposed Troy, so without telling her or any other god, the Olympian ordered Oneiros to tell Agamemnon that the Greek troops could “now” take the city. The subsequent attack would cause the death of many.Less
This chapter begins with the first book of the Iliad, according to which, in the ninth year of the Trojan War, Apollo destroyed many Greeks to punish Agamemnon, their commander, for having taken captive the daughter of Apollo's priest. To avert the plague, Agamemnon begrudgingly freed the girl and, in her place, took to his tent Achilles's beloved concubine Briseis. Enraged, Achilles withdrew from the war and asked his mother, Thetis, to implore Zeus to punish Agamemnon. The king of the gods thus decided to send him a “destructive dream.” Hera, Zeus's wife, stiffly opposed Troy, so without telling her or any other god, the Olympian ordered Oneiros to tell Agamemnon that the Greek troops could “now” take the city. The subsequent attack would cause the death of many.
Barbara Weiden Boyd
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- December 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190680046
- eISBN:
- 9780190680077
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190680046.003.0004
- Subject:
- Classical Studies, Literary Studies: Classical, Early, and Medieval, World History: BCE to 500CE
Chapter 3 recaps the centrality of paternity as thematic and metatextual link between Homer and Ovid. It considers the didactic or paradigmatic connotations of paternal guidance and then turns to the ...
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Chapter 3 recaps the centrality of paternity as thematic and metatextual link between Homer and Ovid. It considers the didactic or paradigmatic connotations of paternal guidance and then turns to the Embassy to Achilles (Book 9 of the Iliad), in which the power of a father to guide his son is validated but also shown to be severely limited. Achilles’s tutor Phoenix tries to soften Achilles’s anger with an exemplum about Meleager: this attempt on Phoenix’s part fails, and thus enacts the poem’s recurring theme of generational conflict. The chapter then focuses on the Calydonian boar hunt in Metamorphoses Book 8 and on Heroides 3, Briseis’s letter to Achilles, which feature the Meleager story and the Embassy to Achilles. In both, Ovid uses the Homeric intertext to explore the nature of his relationship with the Homeric poems and the limits of Homer’s paternal guidance.Less
Chapter 3 recaps the centrality of paternity as thematic and metatextual link between Homer and Ovid. It considers the didactic or paradigmatic connotations of paternal guidance and then turns to the Embassy to Achilles (Book 9 of the Iliad), in which the power of a father to guide his son is validated but also shown to be severely limited. Achilles’s tutor Phoenix tries to soften Achilles’s anger with an exemplum about Meleager: this attempt on Phoenix’s part fails, and thus enacts the poem’s recurring theme of generational conflict. The chapter then focuses on the Calydonian boar hunt in Metamorphoses Book 8 and on Heroides 3, Briseis’s letter to Achilles, which feature the Meleager story and the Embassy to Achilles. In both, Ovid uses the Homeric intertext to explore the nature of his relationship with the Homeric poems and the limits of Homer’s paternal guidance.
