Structures of care in the Iliad
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9664247 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Michael Lynn-George (University of Alberta, corresponding author) |
| Year | 1996 |
| Volume | 46 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 1-26 |
| Publication date | 1996-05-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The Classical Quarterly (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0009-8388 • E-ISSN: 1471-6844 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1093/cq/46.1.1 |
| PMID | 16437845 |
| OpenAlex | W2029451272 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 7 |
| References cited | 15 |
When Andromache emerges from the inner chamber in Book 22, ascends the walls of Troy and looks out over the plain, she beholds a spectacle of ruthless brutality. She who has not been aware of the final combat, nor of the slaying of her husband, is suddenly confronted by the receding trail of utter defeat. Swift horses drag her husband's corpse into the distance, the cherished head disfigured as it is dragged, raking the dust of what was once their homeland. The violence of the scene is forcefully conveyed by one word in particular. The swift horses drag Hektor ⋯κηδ⋯στως (22.465)—without κ⋯δος without care, ‘sans soucier de, brutalement’. In itself the word ⋯κηδ⋯στως provides a definition of violence, one captured in Shakespeare's phrase ‘careless force’. Violence is, in its harsh brutality, specifically heedlessness, an absence of any form of care. When Achilles hurls the slain suppliant Lykaon into the river he utters the taunt, ‘the fish, ⋯κηδ⋯ες, will lick clean your wound's blood’ (21.122–3). The discarded corpse is denied funeral rites: in place of the care that the relations of the dead traditionally bestow in tending, washing, enshrouding, lamenting, and burying the dead, here the heedless creatures of nature, fleeting visitors, will attend to the corpse, ‘clean’ it, but utterly without care, completely oblivious to the oblivion they create by destroying. In Book 24 Achilles will describe the gods themselves as ⋯κηδ⋯ες (526)
Archaeology · Art · Creatures · Homeland · Literature · Natural (archaeology · Political science · Politics · Spectacle · Swift · Crime, Deviance, and Social Control · History · Law · Law in Society and Culture · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism
| Unique citing works | 7 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.54 |
| Citation span | 2013 - 2025 (13) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 7 |