About the Iliad
Greetings from Annapolis Maryland!-- I belong to a seminar which is run by St. John's College in Annapolis Maryland. St. John's is a unique college -- has a curriculum unlike any other college or university in the US. It is based on the great books -- and the students mostly read the great books, learn ancient Greek, Latin, etc. plus mathematics and science. If I had been able, I would love to have attended that school myself. At any rate, they run executive seminars, monthly, in Boston, New York, Philadelphia (2 of them), Baltimore and Washington. They send along a facilitator and the President of the College usually attends. Now, one must understand that the approach taken by Great Books is a special method of inquiry -- we are only permitted to discuss the text and draw our conclusions from it. As a sociologist I have a difficult time with this approach as I believe all artifacts, material and non-material, are related to the context in which they are developed. However, I get a lot from these discussions so I do not allow my norma l approach to interfere.We meet only for one and one-half hours-- which is hardly enough time to discuss the Odyssey or The Iliad (two sessions on each). The facilitator throws out a question at the beginning of the discussion which gets the ball rolling and then the group (22 women in my group) take it from there. The question about the Odyssey was "Why does Athena go to Telemachus at the beginning of the story?" It is very enlightening to hear others' reactions to the readings -- it prompts one to think about the work in a different way -- and I like that.Iliad - mostly about fightingAs far as The Iliad was concerned -- it is mostly about fighting, as you undoubtedly know. The battles are frequent, bloody, violent and Homer does not hesitate to give you the feel of them -- the plunging of the spears into bodies, the guts spilling out, heads cracked, eyes plucked, blood everywhere, etc. In my group there were some who thought Achilles very stubborn and a big baby for not joining the fighting. He was also viewed as a thug. Personally, I liked Achilles -- I guess it is his mythic qualities -- I thought he had been most unjustly treated and had a right to refuse to help Agamemnon (whom I disliked a great deal) -- although I didn't like the fact that his peers were dying on the battlefield. When he finally went into the battle he fought gloriously (although bloodily). Hector I had fewer feelings about -- I loved the scene where he says goodbye to his wife and son -- I think he showed great tenderness there. He seemed more a victim of his circumstances with Creon for a father and his br other Paris having caused the whole mess.I thought the poetry was beautifulDespite the fact that the book is primarily about bloody battles (how about how they take the time to steal the booty in the middle of a battle!!), I thought the poetry was beautiful -- great use of metaphor -- I loved reading it -- which says a lot considering I normally would not spare a glance at such a topic.By the way, thanks for the link to the map (Pirkko!). I have received an annoucement about a trip next spring that will trace Odysseus' footsteps -- rather journeys -- around the Mediterranean to the spots referred to in The Odyssey. It sounds like a great idea -- but is quite expensive -- and I am not sure I would be happy spending so much time on a boat.
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