The course will trace the central story of Achilles, Patroklos and Hektor and the battle for Troy seen with all the intensity of those who have chosen the ‘heroic exchange’ of long life for glory. But also of those looking on, deeply affected but powerless: Achilles' mother, Hektor's wife Andromache, Helen, war slaves like Briseis and Chryseis. But each hero's deeds are woven into a tapestry of life - scenes of animals, farm life and nature worked in miniature as similes and of homely communal life worked onto Achilles' shield.
Audiences in the past have been drawn to the poem as a glorification of war; in the present, rather, as testimony to its futility; recently, several novelists sought to envoice its victims, Briseis and Patroklos. We will follow the epic’s reflection of and on attitudes to war, death and memorialisation: its setting of ‘heroic excellence’ against other perspectives and others’ stories in Troy and the Greek camp.
We will trace the dynamic and psychology of Achilles’ battlerage: from Agamemnon’s taking of Briseis to Hektor’s fateful encounter with Patroklos and Achilles’ with Priam, set against the view from Olympus, from the citadel of Troy and the battlefield’s tragic stage of encounters seen as now glorious, now pitiful, now foolish and deluded.
As well as looking to the epic’s construction, we will discuss the affective framings of key scenes and themes, to debate the grandeur and pity of this iconic war of very differently inflected ideas of ‘heroism’.
