Poetry Among Other Activities of Homeric Man

If we assemble all the manifestations of Homeric man -from physiological instincts to the higher forms of intellectual activity and take them, provisionally at least, as a corpus representative of the entire spectrum of Homeric man’s functioning, we shall see that the way in which poetry is treated in Homer is far from being peculiar to this activity alone. Thus, Homer’s poets sing either when ‘incited’ by the Muse, ‘moved’ by a god, or ‘stirred’ by their tliumos (‘spirit’) or noos (‘mind’), and Hesiod says about himself that the Muses ‘ordered’ him to sing1-but ‘to incite’, ‘to move’, ‘to stir’, ‘to order’ can motivate many other actions of Homeric man. Helen’s elopement with Paris, Patroclus’ fatal onslaught on Troy, Telemachus’ decision to call the assembly and lo go to Pylos are explained exactly like Demodocus’ starting of his performances,’ not to mention the stereotyped acts of fighting, speaking, or even eating and drinking that are regularly the result of being ‘stirred’, ‘incited’, ‘moved’, or ‘ordered’. Again, Hesiod says about himself that the Muses ‘breathed’ into him ‘divine song’’-but communication o[ martial valour and strength (menos, tharsos, alkē, sthenos) by one of the gods, sudden surges of anger of anger (kotos) and infatuation (atē) are also quite often explained by Homer as either ‘put’ or ‘thrown’ into someone’s heart, either ‘sent’ or ‘breathed’ into man by the gods; and the same is true of fortunate or ill-fated ideas, of desires, oracles, and so on.

Art · Hesiod · Instinct · Literature · Poetry · Classical Antiquity Studies · Classical Philosophy and Thought · Philosophy