Hi. I suggest you take a look at Elizabeth Asmis' s discussion round the fact that Plato dismissed HOME R'S poetry, which had precedents among his contemporaries. Homer represented the gods and goddesses as deceitful and treacherous which the religious discourse of the time did not approve of.
Hi Guillermo. Two questions to clarify the topic.
Are you looking at Homer in the context of when his works were written, or the issue of their later influence?
And, in your question, are you interested in both works, the Odyssey and the Iliad, or just the Iliad, which to me seems to fit in more with hegemonic issues?
Querido Guillermo, en mi opinión define una coiné de valores y no tiene nada de disidente. Pero tampoco los definiría como tradicionales.
Hi, If I understand Your question correctly the answer would be clear - it is not dissident. The Homeric epic was composed for the needs of the Greek elites and to fulfill their ambitions and cure their frustrations (we are not so important as our grandfatheres were...). So, if I understood correctly the opposition in You question, there is no way to see it as dissident. I may suggest the basic readings: O. Murray, Early Greece, and B. Patzek, Homer und seine Zeit
Yours,
ŁNS
As I see the problem, there can be no dissident epos in an oral culture (i.e., a culture foreign to writing), since epic poetry passed down from generation to generation is the medium through which oral societies preserve their collective memory. And as a sociological rule, I dare say, in oral and literate societies alike, collective memory has a built-in status quo bias. Althemore so in oral societies, where dissident memories, once their social carriers are defeated, are readily efaced from collective memory that lives on through epic poems.
You can check out my full argument in the paper I have attached to my comment.
Article History and Collective Memory: The Succeeding Incarnations o...
I think majority of scholars nowadays do not think about oral coposition of Homeric poems, but rather as written texts in the culture full of oral poetry.
As for war, it is obviously not dissident. But as for the fate of the victims of war, especially captives, women and children, it is courageusly dissident. Why? Homeros means HOSTAGE. Perhaps even of a not-Greek origin. See the motive of Hector, his wife and son. It is also dissident as for the portrait of the victorious army, murderers and robbers, arrogant, dishonest etc. Guns among roses... I wrote about it, but in Polish. Nice to meet someone who sees the same problem.
The both. Ideologically ,Homer supports some traditional hegemonic values, but at the same time presents many interpretations, which can defined as dissident.
The Iliad conforms to the requirements of the epic-that is of course portraying great events and aristocrats doing them. Nevertheless, he portrays the Trojans more sympathetically (barring Paris) than the Greeks, and portrays war as wholly destructive and death in battle as simply brutal. In the end, there is no glory.
But in order to satisfy the question, what do we compare it to? The only comparison surely is Gilgamesh-which had more and other lessons to impart.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Linguistics
- Philology
- Classical Philology