Achilles’ Character as an Internal Critique of Warmongering Ideals in the Iliad

Bibliographic Data

ID21865002
AuthorsMarina Marren (0000-0002-6597-3917, corresponding author)
Year2023
Volume17
Issue2
Pages550-565
Publication date2023-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueΣΧΟΛΗ Ancient Philosophy and the Classical Tradition (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1995-4328 • E-ISSN: 1995-4336
PublisherNovosibirsk State University (NSU) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.25205/1995-4328-2023-17-2-550-565
OpenAlexW4385659680
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited16

In this paper, I show how Achilles’ faults work as a lens through which we more readily see the problematic nature of ideals that cast war – and especially an aggressive war of conquest – in a poeticized and desirable light. I argue that in Homer’s Iliad, idealized images of war, which promise super-human glory, in the end, serve to undo and waste human life. I do not mean to say that in this archetypal war epic we find an outright critique of war. However, I argue that the Iliad holds its poeticized images of war in tension with the gruesome, life-negating violence to which these idealized representations give way

Aesthetics · Ancient history · Art · CONQUEST · EPIC · Glory · Literature · Spanish Civil War · Classical Antiquity Studies · History · Philosophy · Religion and Society Interactions · War, Ethics, and Justification

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