Collins, Leslie: Studies in Characterization in the Iliad

Analyzing Paris, Helen and Agamemnon as prominent examples of characters who are ethically distinct, even distant, from the warrior, the study shows that these characters are both contradictive and fundamental to the poem's (ethical) concerns. The Iliad, whose hero and subject orient its ethics towards warfare, has occasion to present characters who are ethically distinct, even distant, from the warrior. And this is a presentation which we can expect to be complicated by the fact that, such characters are paradoxically both peripheral and fundamental to the poem's concerns. Their identities and ethical qualities demand that we consider the operation of different factors, such as tradition, the ethics of the poem, and the narrative, on the presentation of character. This study is primarily interested in these characters. It is broadly organized around two concepts, 'erôs' and the 'basileus', which contrast with warfare. These concepts and their traditional associations organize the presentation of the three characters whom we shall be considering in particular; for these concepts and the characters they help to define have problematic ethical value in the context of an ethical System which addresses and responds primarily to warfare and the warrior: 1. Eros and Polemos: The Wrath of Paris. 2. Eros and Polemos: Helen. 3. Skeptron and Polemos: Agamemnon. 113 Seiten, gebunden (Athenäums Monografien Altertumswissenschaft/Beiträge zur Klassischen Philologie; Band 189/Athenäum Verlag 1988)