Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad PDF
Preview Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad
Talking Trojan Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches General Editor: Gregory Nagy, Harvard University On the front cover: A calendar frieze representing the Athenian months, reused in the Byzantine Church of the Little Metropolis in Athens. The cross is superimposed, obliterating Taurus of the Zodiac. The choice of this frieze for books in Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches reflects this series’ emphasis on the blending of the diverse heritages—Near Eastern, Classical, and Christian—in the Greek tradition. Drawing by Laurie Kain Hart, based on a photograph. Recent titles in the series are: The Transformation of Hera: A Study of Ritual, Hero, and the Goddess in the Iliad Joan V. O'Brien, Southern Illinois University Hegemony and Greek Historians John Wickersham, Ursinus College The Scepter and the Spear: Studies on Forms of Repetition in the Homeric Poems Steven Lowenstam, University of Oregon The Origins and Development of Ancient Greek Democracy James L. O’Neil, The University of Sydney Heat and Lust: Hesiod’s Midsummer Festival Scene Revisited J. Ὁ. B. Petropoulos, Democritean University of Thrace The Pastoral Narcissus: A Study of the First Idyll of Theocritus Clayton Zimmerman, Carleton College An Archaeology of Ancestors: Tomb Cult and Hero Cult in Early Greece Carla M. Antonaccio, Wesleyan University The Seal of Orestes: Self-Reference and Authority in Sophocles’ Electra Ann G. Batchelder, College of the Holy Cross The Shield of Achilles and the Poetics of Ekphrasis Andrew Sprague Becker, Virginia Polytechnic Institute The Blinded Eye: Thucydides and the New Written Word Gregory Crane, Tufts University The Wrath of Athena: Gods and Men in the Odyssey Jenny Strauss Clay, University of Virginia Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad Hilary Mackie, Rice University Talking Trojan Speech and Community in the Jliad HILARY MACKIE ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Lanham +» Boulder +» New York 9 London ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC. Published in the United States of America by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 4720 Boston Way, Lanham, Maryland 20706 3 Henrietta Street London WC2E 8LU, England Copyright © 1996 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmiin tanty efdorm or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher. British Cataloging in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Mackie, Hilary Susan, 1965- Talking Trojan : speech and community in the Iliad / Hilary Mackie. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Homer. Iliad. 2. Epic poetry, Greek—History and criticism. 3. Language and culture—Troy (Extinct city) 4. Troy (Extinct city)—In literature. 5. Trojan War— Literature and the war. 6. Culture conflict in literature. 7. Community life in literature. 8. Language and culture—Greece. 9. Homer-—Characters—Trojans. 10. Speech in literature. 11. Homer—Language. 1. Title. PA4037.M28 1996 883’.0l—dc20 96-13820 CIP ISBN 0-8476-8254-4 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 0-8476-8255-2 (pbk. : alk. paper) Printed in the United States of America ἘΜ Θ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984. Contents Foreword Acknowledgments Introduction 1 Kosmos and Clamor: Assembling the Troops 15 Kosmos and Klaggé The Agoré Agamemnon’s Elders and Hektor’s Aristoi Wrangling with the King Blaming Hektor The Teikhoskopia Poetic or Political 2 Face to Face: Fighting Talk and Talking Trojan 43 Face to Face Trojan Bowmen Fighting Talk Winged Arrows and Windy Words Talking Trojan Trojan Poets The Disarming of Diomedes Aeneas’s Nomos Epeön Prayers and Tears Sarpedon Genre and Gender Epithets of Praise and Blame 3 The Language of Hektor: Trojan Kleos Hektor’s Xenoi and Trojan Kleos Hektor’s Kleitoi Epikouroi Trojan-Achaean Xenia Hektor’s Kleos Hektor’s Beautiful Death Poetry and Forgetting Poetic Uniqueness Hektor and Paris Hektor and Andromache 4 Strife and the Language of Achilles 127 Praise and Blame The Base Argives Achilles’ Deeds and Days Achilles’ Abuse of Abuse Achilles and Homer Conclusion 161 Bibliography 169 index 183 About the Author 198 Greek Studies: Interdisciplinary Approaches Foreword by Gregory Nagy, General Editor Building on the foundations of scholarship within the disciplines of philology, philosophy, history, and archaeology, this series spans the continuum of Greek traditions extending from the second millennium B.C.E. to the present, not just the Archaic and Classical periods. The aim is to enhance perspectives by applying various different disciplines to problems that have in the past been treated as the exclusive concern of a single given discipline. Besides the crossing over of the older disciplines, as in the case of historical and literary studies, the series encourages the application of such newer ones as linguistics, sociology, anthropology, and comparative literature. It also encourages encounters with current trends in methodology, especially in the realm of literary theory. Talking Trojan: Speech and Community in the Iliad, by Hilary Mackie, explores the Homeric tradition’s complex and subtle portrayal of cultural differences by focusing on the ways in which the Iliad “quotes,” within its epic narrative, the different speech-patterns of different characters. The formulaic system of Homeric poetry, as Mackie demonstrates, is capable of differentiating not only characters but also social groups: the Iliad can even differentiate systematically between Greeks and non-Greeks—producing results quite different from the tragedians’ negative stereotype of the Barbarian. The “otherness” of the Trojans in Homeric poetry is not a reflex of Hellenic ethnocentrism; rather, it provides a vehicle for the poetic exploration of the institutions of the archaic Greek community in and of itself. Acknowledgments I remain indebted to all those in the Classics Department at Princeton University who offered suggestions and provided encouragement in the initial stages of this book’s composition. Thanks are due above all to Richard Martin, Josh Ober, and Brent Vine. More recently, Gregory Nagy’s kind interest and enthusiasm have greatly facilitated my bringing the book to a conclusion. Between times, successive drafts of the book benefited considerably from the insights of my colleagues at Rice University—in particular, I thank Michael Maas, David Nirenberg, and Harvey Yunis—and of others who were kind enough to read and comment on various portions of the text at its various stages of genesis. These include Cynthia Freeland, Randy Ganiban, James Houlihan, Bob Lamberton, Mitzi Lee, Joan Mackie, Penelope Mackie, Kate Pogue, David Rehm, Ann Suter, and Rob Zaretsky. I am also grateful to the Classics Department at Harvard University for assisting my research by granting me visiting scholar status in the summer of 1994. For some much appreciated assistance in preparing the manuscript, I extend my thanks to Joan Mackie, Leonard Muellner, Terri Munisteri, Carolynne White, and John Wickersham. Translations are for the most part taken or adapted from Richmond Lattimore’s The Iliad of Homer, copyright by the University of Chicago Press, 1951.
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