Ransom, Revenge, and Heroic Identity in the Iliad

TRAMA

From beginning to end of the Iliad, Agamemnon and Achilleus are locked in a high-stakes struggle for dominance based on their efforts to impose competing definitions of loss incurred and the nature of compensation thereby owed. This typology of scenes involving apoina, or 'ransom' and poine, or 'revenge' is the basis of Donna Wilson’s detailed anthropology of compensation in Homer, which she locates in the wider context of agonistic exchange. Wilson argues that a struggle over definitions is a central feature of elite competition for status in the zero-sum and fluid ranking system characteristic of Homeric society. This system can be used to explain why Achilleus refuses Agamemnon’s ‘compensation’ in Book 9, as well as why and how the embassy tries to mask it. Ransom, Revenge, and Heroic Identity in the Iliad thus examines the traditional semantic, cultural and poetic matrix of which compensation is an integral part.

SOMMARIO

Preface and acknowledgements; Introduction: compensation and heroic identity; 1. Ransom and revenge: poetics and politics of compensation; 2. Agamemnon and Chryses: between king and father; 3. The quarrel: men who would be king; 4. The embassy to Achilleus: in the name of the father; 5. Achilleus and Priam: between king and father; 6. Unlimited poine: poetry as practice; Appendices; Notes; Abbreviations; References; Index of Homeric passages; General index.

PREFAZIONE

Wilson offers a reading of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilleus, presenting a detailed anthropology of compensation in Archaic Greece, and demonstrating how the struggle over definitions was a central feature of elite competition for status in the fluid ranking system of Homeric society.

ALTRE INFORMAZIONI

• Condizione: Nuovo
• ISBN: 9780521032780
• Dimensioni: 228 x 17 x 150 mm Ø 376 gr
• Formato: Brossura
• Illustration Notes: 21 b/w illus.
• Pagine Arabe: 252