The Power of Thetis: Allusion and Interpretation in the Iliad

224 Pages·1995·2.02 MB·English

by  Laura M. Slatkin

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Page iii
The Power of Thetis
Allusion and Interpretation in the Iliad
Laura M. Slatkin
University of California Press
Berkeley Los Angeles London
Page iv
University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England
© 1991 by
The Regents of the University of California
First Paperback Printing 1995
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data
Slatkin, Laura M.
The power of Thetis : allusion and inter-
pretation in the Iliad / Laura M. Slatkin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-520-20355-0
1. Homer. Iliad. 2. Thetis (Greek mythol-
ogy) in literature. 3. Achilles (Greek mythology)
in literature. 4. Trojan War in literature.
1. Title.
PA4037.S49 1991 91-6712
883'.01dc20 CIP
Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements
of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence
of Paper for Primed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.
Page v
TO C.A.S. AND R.L.S.
AND
TO THE MEMORY OF C.E.S.
Page vii
Contents
Acknowledgments ix
Preface xiii
Abbreviations xvii
Introduction 1
1. The Helplessness of Thetis 17
2. The Power of Thetis 53
3. The Wrath of Thetis 85
4. Allusion and Interpretation 107
Bibliography 123
Index 133
Page ix
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments are the ultimate form of allusion. To record my
gratitude to the individuals named here is to evoke with renewed
pleasure the conversations from which I learned so much and the
friendships out of which they arose. For a short book, then, this one
boasts, happily, a long list of debts.
Like its subject Thetis, this book arrived at its present form after
several stages of metamorphosis. Throughout all of them, Sara
Bershtel, Margaret Carroll, and Amy Johnson, together with Pat
Easterling, John H. Finley Jr., Gregory Nagy, and Richard Sacks have
been heroic in their efforts to clarify my thinking about the Iliad and
more. Suffice it to say allusively here that their wisdom and their
fortifying affection have profoundly sustained and rewarded my work;
in a real sense, they have been my collaborators.
The study began to take shape in 1976 while I was teaching at the
University of California at Santa Cruz and owes much to the
sympathetic interest of my colleagues and students from those
incomparably stimulat-
Page x
ing days, most especially to the indispensable, bracing, and
illuminating criticisms of Norman O. Brown. Over recent years,
Nicole Loraux has been an unfailingly responsive interlocutor, for
whose commitment to this study I am deeply grateful; her challenging
insight into the issues addressed here and the breadth of her
perspective on them have enriched my understanding of the material
and guided me to see a larger context for its meaning. With
characteristic generosity and care, Richard Janko read the manuscript
in all its versions and has contributed countless valuable suggestions;
without his warm support and kindly prodding, this book would not
exist. Helen Bacon, Andrée Hayum, Seth Schein, and Froma Zeitlin
have been, as always, forthright, astute, and patient critics, as have
Dale Sinos, Robert Tannenbaum, and James Zetzel; I have benefitted
from their compelling questions and judicious advice. For their
welcome encouragement and perceptive comments, I think gratefully
of the late Steele Commager, and of Harry Berger, Jr., Ann Bergren,
Lillian Doherty, Helene Foley, Kathy Eden, Nancy Felson-Rubin,
Douglas Frame, Michele Hannoosh, Jinyo Kim, Katherine King, Gary
Miles, Michael Nagler, Holly Nagy, Joseph Russo, Rose Slatkin, and
Kate Toll.
Most recently, the University of California Press has provided a return
to the hospitable West Coast spirit of collective endeavor. For this I
thank Richard Holway, whose knowledge of archaic Greek poetry and
early enthusiasm for this study helped to get the project under
Page xi
way, and particularly Doris Kretschmer, who, with extraordinary
editorial acumen, grace, and efficiency, made the rest of the way seem
effortless. The Hesiodic genealogy was right: Doris did bring forth
Thetis! I am greatly indebted to Mary Lamprech for expertly and
scrupulously seeing the whole project through to completion, with her
distinctive combination of rigor and reassurance, and to Marian
Shotwell, whose thoughtful copyediting improved the manuscript. I
am indebted as well to The American Council of Learned Societies
for a fellowship, and to the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at
Columbia University for a Mellon fellowship, both of which advanced
the evolution of this book.
Above all, I wish to express my appreciation to Carole Slatkin for her
invaluable solidarity on all fronts, and to Regina Slatkin for her
heartening, optimistic counsel and her unstinting assistance on every
aspect of this study from its inception, and for her erudite and
invigorating curiosity about all matters Homeric. Whatever is
worthwhile in the following pages is intended as a devoted tribute to
them, and to the memory of my father.
Page xiii
Preface
As every era finds its own reasons for reading the Iliad and the
Odyssey and discovers its own meaning in them, so it must participate
in the ongoing process of discriminating Homeric thoughtattitudes,
values, ideologyfrom its own, rather than assimilating Homer to itself.
The attempt to establish a context within which to read Homeric
poetry must naturally draw on the indispensable efforts of
archaeologists, historians, anthropologists, linguists, and specialists in
ancient religion in order to provide appropriate bearings for analysis.
This is obvious enough when we consider social and political
institutions, economic configurations, or technology, areas in which
the differences between our world and that of early Greece are
apparent. Modes of perception and cognition, as reflected in literature,
are more difficult to distinguish and identify.
The challenge to define as fully as possible the cultural environment
in which a work of literature was produced presents itself with every
examination of an ancient text. In the case of the extraordinarily
complex phenomenon of Attic drama the task is perhaps facili-