What is the feminist interpretation of Homer's Helen?
More recent feminist scholarship has attempted to understand and interpret the rhetoric and psychology that Homer gives to Helen, particularly her claim of adulterous agency and accompanying self-abuse.
What did Homer do for US in the Iliad?
His epic poetry illustrates how people, their actions and the past can be remembered, even memorialised. As an educator of the people, Homer illustrated his understanding of the influence of playwrights in teaching the polis in a section of the Iliad.
How does Helen feel about her husband in the Odyssey?
Helen has mixed feelings because she feels some complicity in her own abduction and realizes how much death and suffering has been the result. That her Trojan husband is not terribly manly compared with his brother or her first husband only increases her feelings of regret. However, it is not clear that Helen had any choice.
How does the Odyssey undermine the credibility of Helen's presence at Troy?
On the one hand, the Odyssey undermines the credibility of Helen’s presence at Troy through the unreliability of her only two witnesses: the first one, Helen herself, prefaces the story of her putative presence at Troy with an extremely odd question, reminiscent of Hesiodic poetry: “should I lie or tell the truth?”
Why is Helen of Troy important to Greek mythology?
Helen of Troy (sometimes called Helen of Sparta) is a figure from Greek mythology whose elopement with (or abduction by) the Trojan prince Paris sparked off the Trojan War. Helen was the wife of Menelaus, the king of Sparta, and considered the most beautiful woman in the world.
What does Helen represent in the Iliad?
Helen is said to be the most beautiful woman in the world, and is the wife of Menelaus, king of Sparta. The divine Aphrodite offers Helen to Paris, prince of Troy, as a prize for judging her the fairest of the goddesses; Paris' abduction of Helen is the catalyst for the Trojan War.
What was the importance of Homer's Iliad to the Greeks?
For the ancient Greeks, the Iliad reminded them of their history and added to their identity. The Trojan War victory filled them with a sense of pride to be descended from the great Greek heroes such as Achilles. Today the Iliad gives insight into the horrors and inevitability of war across time.
Why is Helen important in the Odyssey?
Wife of Menelaus and queen of Sparta. Helen's abduction from Sparta by the Trojans sparked the Trojan War. Her beauty is without parallel, but she is criticized for giving in to her Trojan captors and thereby costing many Greek men their lives. She offers Telemachus assistance in his quest to find his father.
What does Homer say about Helen?
According to Homer, Helen is a woman of god-like beauty. She iwas so beautiful that some of the most intelligent men in Troy understood why the two sides were fighting over a single woman.
What important role does Helen plays during the Trojan War?
Her significance can be felt almost immediately because Helen left her Achaean husband to be with the Trojan prince, Paris, which directly led to the Trojan War. Her Spartan husband, King Menelaus, gathered other kings and armies and sailed for Troy, thus beginning the war.
What was the purpose of Homer's poems the Iliad and the Odyssey?
The Iliad and The Odyssey, Homer's most famous creations, are both epics. This means that they are very long poems describing the exploits of a hero. Usually, epics focus on a hero either accomplishing great feats in battle or going on a long journey. In some cases, the hero does both.
What was the main focus of Homer's Iliad?
Love and friendship, fate and free will, and honor are the main themes of Homer's The Iliad. All three themes follow Achilles and the other main characters of the epic poem. We see how Achilles' friendship with Patroclus and his hunger for honor guides much of the epic, which lead to both his and Hector's demises.
Who was Homer and why was he important to ancient Greece?
Homer is the presumed author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, two hugely influential epic poems of ancient Greece. If Homer did in fact compose the works, he is one of the greatest literary artists in the world, and, through these poems, he affected Western standards and ideas.
How is Helen presented in the Odyssey?
In “The Odyssey”, Helen is shown as living happily with Menelaus after he brought her back from Sparta. She is portrayed as an intelligent person who sees things for what they truly are, but is mostly reserved to wifely duties.
How does Helen Help Odysseus?
The second “Helen” is revealed in a counter story told straight after hers by her husband Menelaus. This counter tale reveals how Helen nearly succeeded in betraying the Greek soldiers hidden in the Trojan horse. In Helen's story, she saves Odysseus' life and her silence and complicity result in Trojan losses.
What is Helen's story How does Helen in this book differ from what she was as a younger person?
What is Helen's story? How does this Helen differ from Helen as a younger person? She was beautiful but not as much as when she was younger. What is the name of the drug that Helen dispenses, and how can the effects of the drug be seen as sinister?
How did Homer react to Helen?
Greek authors, including Homer, react to the threat of Helen by limiting her power, often in the guise of defending her . Troy does the same thing in a different way, by casting her as an adolescent everygirl, contrasting her with the feisty Briseis, and displacing her beauty in favour of the star power and charisma of Brad Pitt’s spectacular body.
How does Helen's ancient defenders neutralize her?
In declaring her not guilty, Helen’s ancient defenders neutralize her by erasing her identity as a transgressive, dangerous woman. The long history of defences of Helen makes sense as an attempt to disarm her.
What did Benioff think of Briseis?
Benioff conceived of Briseis as a powerful female presence. 76 As such, she supplants Helen to become the true focus of the pivotal story of abduction, seduction and passion, serving among other things to make the Greeks, not the Trojans, the ‘real’ rapists and abductors of women.
What conception allowed Helen to reign supreme?
The Greeks seem to have conceived of beauty as something that can be measured objectively, 49 a conception that allows Helen by definition to reign supreme, and which indeed makes Helen possible in the first place.
What does Helen miss about Menelaus?
The Iliadic Helen also misses Menelaus (3.139–40, 3.173–76), and expresses acute contempt for Paris, whom she castigates as far inferior to her former husband, both as a warrior (3.428–36) and (by implication) in moral sense (sensitivity to shame) and integrity (stable ) (6.350–53).
What is the theme of Troy (2004)?
Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy (2004), which draws on the Iliad, places a new emphasis on heterosexual pair-bonding. Yet, the film extends the Greek project of disempowering Helen in the guise of defending her.
What makes Helen of Troy dangerous?
The supreme beauty of Helen of Troy makes her the most dangerous of all women. Most Greek authors react to the threat she poses by limiting her power, often in the guise of defending her. Thus in the Iliad, Achilles’ story displaces hers, and male characters excuse her from blame by denying her agency.
What is Helen's biggest impact in this story?
Helen's biggest impact in this story is to be the direct cause of the Trojan War. As it usually happened in Greek myths, the gods have a part to play in this story. There are three goddesses, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite, who want to claim the golden apple of the Hesperides, which belongs ''to the fairest.'' Zeus chooses the Trojan prince, Paris, to decide who should get the apple. Each goddess had promised him a reward if Paris chose her. He selects Aphrodite in part because she offers him the beautiful Helen.
Who was the most beautiful woman in the Trojan War?
This war between the Achaeans and the Trojans lasted for ten years, but it all began with one woman: Helen, wife of the Spartan king Menelaus and supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world. After all, it was she whom Christopher Marlowe was referring to when he penned the line, ''the face that launched a thousand ships.''
What is the most influential method of storytelling in Homer's epics?
However, the most influential are arguably the archaic methods of storytelling seen in Homer’s epics. The archaic lyric poetry is narrative storytelling of heroes and myths and was always created with the purpose of teaching morals and beliefs to society.
What is the theme of the Iliad?
Memory is a significant theme explored in Homer’s Iliad. His epic poetry illustrates how people, their actions and the past can be remembered, even memorialised. As an educator of the people, Homer illustrated his understanding of the influence of playwrights in teaching the polis in a section of the Iliad.
Why is mythologizing important?
The mythologizing of the event helps the audience to understand how myth’s role in changing history can be used to unify people during difficult times. The goal of this was for the Ancient Greeks to remember and memorialise their military victories to garner patriotism in order to die as a hero for one’s country.
What is the story of Ancient Greece?
Originally the mythical stories were told orally and later performed by playwrights at the cities’ festivals, until the Ancient Greeks re-discovered the tool of the written word and Homer’s epics quickly became physical texts.
What is the significance of the Iliad?
When there were times of crisis for the Ancient Greeks, the famous text became a unifying factor which signified the glory of the great Achilles. The spirit that Achilles has in the Iliad, the audience learns, is used by all Ancient Greeks to overcome war, suffering and hardship.
What is the most well preserved poem of the era?
Undeniably, the most famous and well-preserved poetry from the era was Homer’s, in particular , his Iliad. Plato, a famous Athenian philosopher would later tell us that Homer had gained a reputation as being “the educator of all Greece.”. As the main form of Ancient Greek education occurred through the teachings of playwrights, ...
Helen's First Appearance
Helen's Second Appearance
Helen's Third Appearance
Helen's Fourth Appearance
Helen's Fifth Appearance
Helen's Sixth Appearance
- Helen's final appearance in the Iliad is in Book 24, at Hector's funeral, where she is distinct from the other mourning women, Andromache, Hector's wife, and Hecuba, his mother, in two ways. (1) Helen praises Hector as a family man where they concentrate on his military prowess. (2) Unlike the other Trojan women, Helen will not be taken as an ensla...