The Ethics of Revenge and the Meanings of the Odyssey

The Ethics of Revenge and the Meanings of the Odyssey PDF

Author: Alexander C. Loney

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2019-01-25

Total Pages: 281

ISBN-13: 0190909676

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This book is the first in-depth examination of revenge in the Odyssey. The principal revenge plot of the Odyssey --Odysseus' surprise return to Ithaca after twenty away and his vengeance on Penelope's suitors -- is the act for which he is most celebrated. This story forms the backbone of the Odyssey. But is Odysseus' triumph over the suitors as univocally celebratory as is often assumed? Does the poem contain and even suggest other, darker interpretations of Odysseus' greatest achievement? This book offers a careful analysis of several other revenge plots in the Odyssey -- those of Orestes, Poseidon, Zeus, and the suitors' relatives. It shows how these revenge stories color one another with allusions (explicit and implicit) that connect them and invite audiences to interpret them in light of one another. These stories -- especially Odysseus' revenge upon the suitors -- inevitably turn out to have multiple meanings. One plot of revenge slips into another as the offender in one story becomes a victim to be avenged in the next. As a result, Odysseus turns out to be a much more ambivalent hero than has been commonly accepted. And in the Odyssey's portrayal, revenge is an unstable foundation for a community. Revenge also ends up being a tenuous narrative structure for an epic poem, as a natural end to cycles of vengeance proves elusive. This book offers a radical new reading of the seemingly happy ending of the poem.

Homeric Morality

Homeric Morality PDF

Author: N. Yamagata

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2018-07-17

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 9004329366

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Homeric Morality is an attempt to answer two questions: whether or not the Homeric gods are concerned with 'justice' in human society, and what mechanism controls the social behaviour of Homeric man. It shows that the gods distribute good and bad fortune to men not in response to their moral behaviour, bus as required by fate; men, however, believe that the gods are concerned with human morality, and subsequently their behaviour is restrained by their faith in the moral gods as well as by many other forces, social and emotional. This volume, taken as a whole, serves as a sustained critique of two influential works in the field, The Justice of Zeus by H. Lloyd- Jones and Merit and Responsibility by A.W.H. Adkins.

Moral Codes and Social Structure in Ancient Greece

Moral Codes and Social Structure in Ancient Greece PDF

Author: Joseph M. Bryant

Publisher: SUNY Press

Published: 1996-01-01

Total Pages: 600

ISBN-13: 9780791430415

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An exercise in cultural sociology, Moral Codes and Social Structure in Ancient Greece seeks to explicate the dynamic currents of classical Hellenic ethics and social philosophy by situating those idea-complexes in their socio-historical and intellectual contexts. Central to this enterprise is a comprehensive historical-sociological analysis of the Polis form of social organization, which charts the evolution of its basic institutions, roles, statuses, and class relations. From the Dark Age period of "genesis" on to the Hellenistic era of "eclipse" by the emergent forces of imperial patrimonialism, Polis society promoted and sustained corresponding normative codes which mobilized and channeled the requisite emotive commitments and cognitive judgments for functional proficiency under existing conditions of life. The aristocratic warrior-ethos canonized in the Homeric epics; the civic ideology of equality and justice espoused by reformist lawgivers and poets; the democratization of status honor and martial virtue that attended the shift to hoplite warfare; the philosophical exaltation of the Polis-citizen bond as found in the architectonic visions of Plato and Aristotle; and the subsequent retreat from civic virtues and the interiorization of value articulated by the Skeptics, Epicureans, and Stoics, new age philosophies in a world remade by Alexander's conquests--these are the key phases in the evolving currents of Hellenic moral discourse, as structurally framed by transformations within the institutional matrix of Polis society.

Ethics in Ancient Greek Literature

Ethics in Ancient Greek Literature PDF

Author: Maria Liatsi

Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG

Published: 2020-08-24

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 3110699613

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Interpretation of ancient Greek literature is often enough distorted by the preconceptions of modern times, especially on ancient morality. This is often equivalent to begging the question. If we think e.g. of aretê, which has different meanings in different contexts, we shall think in English (or in Modern Greek or in French or in German) and shall falsify the phenomena. If we are to understand the Greek concept e.g. of aretê we must study the nature of the situations in which it is applied. For it is an important fact in the study of Greek society that the Greeks used the one word (e.g. aretê) where we use different words. If we are to understand properly the texts, we have to view them in their historical and social context. Ancient Greek thought needs to be studied together with politics, ethics, and economic behaviour. Moreover, the best insights can be found in those who confine themselves to the terms of each ancient author's analysis. From this principle each of the contributions of the volume begins.

The Heart of Achilles

The Heart of Achilles PDF

Author: Graham Zanker

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 9780472084005

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Explores the moral choices and values Homer offers in his Iliad

The Limits of Heroism

The Limits of Heroism PDF

Author: Mark Buchan

Publisher: UNSW Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 300

ISBN-13: 9780472113910

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"The Limits of Heroism: Homer and the Ethics of Reading examines the difficulty and danger of human desire in both the Iliad and the Odyssey, as it explores the uncertainty of decision making and the relationship of desire to heroic ideology." "The Limits of Heroism applies current theoretical work on desire and ideology-critique as it investigates well-known scholarly problems: the problem of the self and human identity, the cohesiveness of heroic ideology, and the possibility of an internal critique of ideology. Scholars and readers of Homer, as well as those interested in the problem of desire, will find The Limits of Heroism an illuminating study of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two vital texts in classical studies."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics

The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics PDF

Author: Roger Crisp

Publisher: OUP Oxford

Published: 2013-01-31

Total Pages: 920

ISBN-13: 0191655767

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Philosophical ethics consists in the human endeavour to answer rationally the fundamental question of how we should live. The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics explores the history of philosophical ethics in the western tradition from Homer until the present day. It provides a broad overview of the views of many of the main thinkers, schools, and periods, and includes in addition essays on topics such as autonomy and impartiality. The authors are international leaders in their field, and use their expertise and specialist knowledge to illuminate the relevance of their work to discussions in contemporary ethics. The essays are specially written for this volume, and in each case introduce the reader to the main lines of interpretation and criticism that have arisen in the professional history of philosophy over the past two or three decades.

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