On
a long flight after a great get-away weekend with my wife, I delighted in re-reading
The Epic Cycle and the Uniqueness of Homer
by Jasper Griffin. I found this fourteen
page essay somewhere on my Nook. You can
find it at JSTOR by clicking the link above.
(If you do not have institutional access to JSTOR you can read it on line
simply by registering at MyJSTOR.)
If
you take the glory of Homer for granted, here is the place to renew your sense of
awe and appreciation for “the exceptional genius which went into the
creation of …the Iliad.”
Griffin
insists that between Homeric and Cyclic
a distinction did exist. “The strict,
radical, and consistently heroic interpretation” of the Iliadic world made
it quite different from the Cycle, with its miracles, un-tragic attitude
towards mortality, exoticism, romance and flattering, flowery, less-dense style
of composition. If
you need proof of his opinion; the second half of the essay is a careful
analysis, stylistically of Cyclic fragments.
He
observes “The Iliad is notably more
cautious with the fantastic.” Then uses Aristotle to point “out that Homer puts many things into the
mouths of his characters, when he himself does not wish to vouch for their
truth, most notably in the stories told by Odysseus… The fantastic, the
miraculous, and the romantic, all exceeded in the Cycle the austere limits to
which the Iliad confines them.”
“Even more, in the accommodating world
of the Cycle death itself can be evaded.” My friend Maya M1 refers to this phenomena
as “scholia as savior”. Griffin then summons Patroclus’ ghost, (Iliad
23. 69) to expound that in Homeric epic “the
dead do not return”. “For the Iliad, human life is defined by the
double inevitability of age and death; for the gods, men's opposite,
immortality and eternal youth are inseparable.
Men must die:”
Just
a sampling of contrasts he notes are that The Iliad;
- excludes low human types and motives.
- knew and suppressed the story about Achilles’ impenetrable armor. Hence the reason Apollo knocked it off Patroclus (Iliad xvi) so Hector can kill him.
- Fragments xviii and xix of the Cypria explain Chryseis was captured by the Achaeans when her city of Chryse was not because she was visiting Thebe at the time.
- In the Cycle, but not in Homer, homicides need to be purified; Griffin suggests this is due to the influence of Delphi.
The contrasts help to bring out the greatness and
the uniqueness that is Homer.
___________________________________________
1 Maya M is the
blogger at Maya
Corner where “ I write about things that interest me, in as
politically incorrect style as I like.”
She is a frequent contributer to Bill’s
Classical Studies. She
writes “ I had some interest in mythology as a child, and "Ancient Greek Legends and Myths" by
Nikolay Kun was among my favorite books. However, this interest was nothing out
of the ordinary. My education had no leaning to classics, except for the
mandatory review of ancient Greek literature in 9th grade. I was truly engaged
only about 2 years ago, when a kid to whom I am a teaching aide got to the
above mentioned 9th grade. My student seemed just bored by mythology and
ancient literature, but I looked at them with new eyes and was fascinated. My
background in biology naturally predisposed me to science-fiction rewriting of
some myths, but I try also to understand what they meant to their original
audience in the pre-scientific, "daimon-haunted" world.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
ReplyDeleteMaya,
ReplyDeleteI dont know what your note said, but my fat thumb accidently deleted it before I could read it. Sorry
Bill
I was just thanking you and agreeing that the Iliad would not be so great without its tragic realism - mortals dying young without even leaving behind a meaningful legacy, and an entire civilization dying.
ReplyDelete