2016.10.20 / updated 2018.09.11 | By Gregory Nagy The momentum of the attacking Trojan warriors gets stalled here, since Hērā interrupts the ongoing Plan of Zeus. The goddess seduces the god, and the setting for their divine sexual encounter is the spectacular landscape of Mount Ida, which is the private… Read more
2016.10.13 / updated 2018.09.11 | By Gregory Nagy The momentum of the Trojan onslaught led by Hector intensifies here, and the prospects of the Achaeans look grim, almost hopeless. Hector is so successful that he feels tempted, toward the end of Rhapsody 13, to equate himself with immortal gods. Meanwhile, the intensity of the narrative keeps pace, and the poetic virtuosity approaches the sublime. Read more
2016.10.05 / updated 2018.09.11 | By Gregory Nagy At the very beginning of Iliad 12, we modern readers may find that we have suddenly hit a wall—the Achaean Wall. It seems difficult for us to understand what the Master Narrator of the Iliad is really saying when he foretells the future destruction or deconstruction of this structure. And the main obstacle to our understanding here is not the presence of… Read more
2016.09.27 / updated 2018.09.11 | By Gregory Nagy Rhapsody 11 marks the point in the Iliad where Patroklos is drawn into a fatal pattern of impersonating Achilles. Pivotal is the story that Patroklos hears from the old hero Nestor. My comments here on Iliad 11 work around Nestor’s story at I.11.670–803 as analyzed in the book Hippota Nestor by Douglas Frame, 2009:105–130. Read more
2016.09.15 / updated 2018.09.11 | By Gregory Nagy There is a pronounced shift in mood in Rhapsody 10. Unlike the narratives in the rest of the Iliad, this narrative focuses on how heroes behave at nighttime, as distinct from daytime. What dominates now is a poetics of ambush, which is a different kind of warfare. And a prime exponent of such poetics is the wolfish figure of Dolon. My comments… Read more
2016.09.07 | By Gregory Nagy In this posting I experiment with a special feature in my ongoing comments on the Homeric Iliad: the anchor comment. The topic, this time, is the idea of an ‘Aeolian’ Homer. Read more
