The Speech of Phoenix

"Iliad" 9.434-605

Bibliographic Data

ID3940016
AuthorsJudith A Rosner (corresponding author)
Year1976
Volume30
Issue4
Pages314
Publication date1976-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePhoenix (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0031-8299 • E-ISSN: 1929-4883
PublisherJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/1087169
OpenAlexW2333710678
LanguageEN
Citations received11

THE NINTH BOOK of the Iliad has long been the object of critical debate. In this book, the speech of Phoenix has attracted particular attention; its position, meaning and authenticity within the book and the epic have often been discussed. Walter Leaf, for example, recognized significant Hesiodic elements in the text.2 In addition, he criticizes the entire Meleager episode as a distinct Epic ballad ... not very skillfully grafted into this already long speech.3 Margarete Noe terms the entire allegory of the Litai Hesiodic and parallels it to the personification of Dike and Horkos at Erga 219 ff.4 Denys Page finds Phoenix' entire philosophical outlook post-Homeric: poet has at least partly turned Epic into Tragedy; he has inserted a layer of guilt-culture into the fabric of shameculture.5 G. S. Kirk, basing his argument on the dual forms which describe the activity of the ambassadors, agrees with Page that the Phoenix segment comprises a later layer of composition superimposed on an earlier embassy consisting of Odysseus and Ajax alone.6 In general, then, the analysts have condemned the speech of Phoenix as un-Homeric, a later interpolation into the original fabric of the Iliad. Several scholars, on the other hand, have noted thematic parallels between the speech of Phoenix, the Ninth Book and, indeed, the epic as a whole.' This paper will attempt to give a more complete analysis of the thematic and verbal connections between Phoenix' speech and the rest of the Iliad. A careful study of these parallels may help to remove at least some of the doubts about the authenticity of the speech and its function as an integral and indispensable element of the Iliad. Phoenix' speech may be divided into three panels: the Peleus or Auto

Archaeology · Art · Linguistics · Phoenix · Classical Antiquity Studies · Historical, Religious, and Philosophical Studies · History · Linguistics and language evolution · Philosophy

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