Eurolit Homework 9/12/18

Read The Iliad: Books IX and XI

Eurolit Notes 9/12/18

We have to have willpower (resolution). What you say or do is your resolution. Audacity is a part of this. According to the Homeric Pattern we shouldn’t exceed the bounds meant for us by the universe or gods. Who created the gods? We did. Therefore, we have imposed these boundaries upon ourselves. We hold ourselves back by our lack of audacity.

Robert Browning (an English romantic poet) said “…man’s reach should exceed his grasp, Or what's a heaven for?” We mess up a lot, but this is what allows us to continue to strive for excellence. We are meant to commit Ate. This his how we attain Arete. 

The gods are anthropomorphic projections of ourselves. They are imperfect because they are reflections of our own imperfections and it is by seeing their flaws that we learn valuable lessons. 

Character is always a positive or negative example of what the author intends, and often he gods are negative examples. What Browning is saying is that we have created something (Heaven) in order to aspire to be perfect. That isn’t what Homer is saying. The gods of The Iliad are, instead, reflections of humanity. 

One of the things Homer does is use repetition. 

Hector is a foil for Achilles. A foil is a secondary character that has an important difference to the main character. Their purpose is to point out or draw attention to this difference. For example, Hector has a sense of duty but Achilles does not — he fights for Greece only for selfish purposes. 

Dramatic irony - when the reader knows something one or more of the characters do not. 

Leitmotif - a recurrent theme throughout a musical or literary composition, associated with a particular person, idea, or situation.

Objective Correlative - he artistic and literary technique of representing or evoking a particular emotion by means of symbols that objectify that emotion and are associated with it.

Man is self-surpassing. Why does Zeus punish Prometheus for giving man fire (or knowledge)? He fears being supplanted by man. The real power is with words. “I, too, could fight the gods with words.” We created the gods and have self-imposed bounds. We can become like the gods, else why is there a heaven? 

Myth of Sisyphus (Camus) - Sisyphus tells the King of Corinth that Zeus has kidnapped his daughter. Zeus finds out and condemns Sisyphus to Tartarus. Sisyphus asks Hades to allow him to say goodbye to his wife, but Sisyphus does not return to Hades after doing this. As a result, Zeus condemns Sisyphus to Tartarus again but Sisyphus must roll a boulder up a mountain for all of eternity. Sisyphus embraces this act, deciding that if he has to roll a boulder up a mountain for eternity he will enjoy it. In short, it’s how you deal with what you’re dealt.