HOMER BESIDE HIMSELF by Alden, Maureen ISBN 019815285X
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[edit] HOMER BESIDE HIMSELF
This title looks at the stories told by the characters in the 'Iliad'. All these stories are relevant to some aspect of the main narrative of the poem and they help us to understand it. Certain episodes narrated by the poet also reflect on the central issues of the poem, such as the dire consequences of rejecting prayers.
Students reading the 'Iliad' for the first time are often bewildered by the sheer volume of information on apparently unrelated subjects contained in it. The central narrative seems to unfold very slowly, and to be complicated by long speeches containing stories which might be interesting in themselves, but which seem to have no relevance to anything else. In this book Dr Alden offers advice on how to read the 'Iliad' through the relationship of major paradigms to the events of the main narrative. The first section offers the first full-length study in English of the paradigmatic functions of secondary narratives and minor-key episodes in the 'Iliad'. None of these are irrelevant or merely ornamental: rather each is carefully selected and altered if necessary, to reflect on significant episodes of the main narrative and act as guides to its interpretation. The second section offers a general reading of the 'Iliad' arising out of Phoenix's advice to Achilles in Book 9. The allegory of the Prayers illustrates the dire consequences of rejecting prayers, and the paradigm of Meleager presents us with an instance of an angry hero to whom prayers and entreaties are addressed, whilst the primary narrative confines this motif of prayers and entreaties in ascending scale of affection to Achilles and Hector and contrasts their responses. Both heroes suffer terribly for their rejection of entreaties.
[edit] Book Details
[edit] Title
HOMER BESIDE HIMSELF
[edit] Author
Alden, Maureen
[edit] ISBN
019815285X
[edit] Published
08/03/2001
[edit] Publisher
Oxford University Press
[edit] Binding
hardback
[edit] Retail Price
77.5 (GBP)
[edit] Typical Price Online
77.5 (GBP)
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