Iliad

Visiting Scholars

Open House | Recall Strategies in the Iliad, with Lynn Kozak

For the first Open House discussion of Fall 2019, we were delighted to welcome Lynn Kozak, McGill University, to discuss ‘Recall Strategies in the Iliad‘. The event took place on Thursday, September 12, at 11 a.m. EDT and was recorded. In connection with this discussion, you might like to read Iliad 16; Iliad 22 https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Greek/Ilhome.php You can watch it on our YouTube channel, or in the frame below. Lynn Kozak… Read more

Book Club

Book Club | April 2019: Casey Dué Achilles Unbound

The Book Club readings for this month are from Casey Dué’s recent book, Achilles Unbound: Multiformity and Tradition in the Homeric Epics, which is available to read for free on the CHS website. https://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:hul.ebook:CHS_Due.Achilles_Unbound.2018 We will all read the Introduction, and Chapter 1: ‘”Winged Words”: How We Came to Have Our Iliad‘. You can then also read as many other chapters as you wish. Discussion will start and continue in… Read more

History,  Word Study

The Idealized Ship | Part 1: Curved, crowned, and garlanded

Both the Iliad and the Odyssey play a key role in our understanding of the ancient Greek ship, in her physical and her metonymic appearance. In this section we will consider the epithet korōnis [κορωνίς] that describes the form of the ancient Greek ship. The word in Greek that we translate as ‘form’ is ideā [ἰδέα]. There is also the word eidos [εἶδος]. In Plato there is no real difference… Read more

Topic for Discussion,  Word Study

Servitude | Part 1: Female servants in Homer

In Homeric poetry, apart from family members there are other members of the household [oikos] who are described by many different Greek words, and carry out differing roles. We were interested in understanding what those words would have meant and how servitude was portrayed, in the context of ancient Greek song culture of the Iliad and Odyssey. We start our exploration with female slaves/servants. Some were captured in war, as foreseen… Read more

Topic for Discussion

Dogs for the ancient Greeks

[1] Anger [mēnis], goddess, sing it, of Achilles, son of Peleus— 2disastrous [oulomenē] anger that made countless pains [algea] for the Achaeans, 3 and many steadfast lives [psūkhai] it drove down to Hādēs, 4 heroes’ lives, but their bodies it made prizes for dogs [kuōn, pl.] [5] and for all birds, and the Will of Zeus was reaching its fulfillment [telos]. Iliad 1.1–5 In this very familiar passage we see the… Read more