~ Update ~ In addition to our original selection, for the discussion on September 5 we will also read Hymn 26, which is also to Dionysus. Here is a link to the English text: Homeric Hymn 26: to Dionysus Our next Book Club selections are the Homeric Hymns to Dionysus, Hymn numbers 1 and 7. You can find the English texts on Perseus: Homeric Hymn 1: to Dionysus Homeric Hymn… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Kevin McGrath, Associate in the Department of South Asian Studies at Harvard University, to discuss how charioteering and charioteers are emblematic—if not signal—of warrior song and culture in the Mahābhārata. Our discussion included reference to focus passages from the Iliad and Mahābhārata noted below, as well as McGrath’s article on Kṛṣṇa in Mahābhārata. Focus Passages & Scholarship Iliad 2. 545ff Iliad 4. 297ff Iliad 5. 239ff… Read more
~ A guest post by Sarah Scott & Jacqui Donlon and the Oinops Study Group ~ …and aboard each vessel crowded full Arcadian companies skilled in war. Agamemnon himself, the lord of men had given them those well-benched ships to plow the wine-dark sea, since works of the sea meant nothing to those landsmen. Iliad II [1] We had seen in ‘Oinops and the Wide Open Sea’ that most of the… Read more
~ A guest blog by Bill Moulton ~ The play Agamemnon is the hot topic in the community at the moment. If you know Aeschylus’ work you know this is the first play in a trilogy which leads to a showdown between the old goddesses of claw and fang versus the new goddess of the city. The three plays are called the Oresteia and its finale is final confrontation between… Read more
We are pleased to share this recent audio conversation (see below) with Casey Dué and Mary Ebbott, during which they discussed their findings on the poetics of ambush in Iliad 10. During the conversation, they explain why they chose to look at Iliad 1 0 in the light of oral poetics, and examine the evidence for a night ambush as a traditional theme, and how this activity is as heroic as, for… Read more