One text down,.....uh a whole bunch to go....
Anyway, this is an open thread to give you a chance to give your own reaction to this strange, incomparable work. What surprised you? What disappointed you? What do you find yourself thinking about still? Favorite part? Most troubling element?
Whatever you have to say, please do refer to some text, either directly or by citation, to let us know what you are basing your analysis on.
As for me, the passage the Sierra mentioned in class on Monday when Achilles offers Phoinix to "be king equally with me" still blows me away. There's no precedent for it in the work and gives a glimpse of generosity that Achilles seems to be lacking elsewhere.
One other detail that I like is in Book VI, when Hektor is making his good-byes to Andromache. I'll quote at length:
So speaking glorious Hektor held out his arms to his baby,
who shrank back to his fair-girdled nurse's bosom
screaming, and frightened at the aspect of his own father,
terrified as he saw the bronze and the crest with it's horse-hair,
nodding dreadfully, as he thought, from the peak of the helmet.
Then his beloved father laughed out, and his honoured mother,
and at once glorious Hektor lifted from his head the helmet
and laid it shining upon the ground. (VI. 466-473)
This seems to be a reference to the unnatural quality of war-making, especially when Homer emphasizes the "bronze" and "horse-hair," which suggest a kind of inhumanity. And that Hektor will take off the helmet to soothe his son gives a sense, perhaps, of the proper hierarchy of glory, honor, and family.
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