I picked
this book up at a used book store.
Professor Bespaloff is typical of the wise academics of the mid to late
20th century. As usual I find
myself in disagreement on many points presented in the work, notably her
slavish devotion to the accepted “titans” of 20th century “scholarship”.
When writers
use words I do not know I am challenged:
1. First I am forced to question the
extent of my own knowledge.
2. I am inspired to explore – to learn
the new words and the insights they give.
3. However, I often find myself
questioning the motives of the author; did he just use that “that word” to show
off? Did he just use that word to show
off, is he searching for the careful nuance that demands specifics.
Below is a
list of words that gave me pause. The
first four are from the introduction, the rest from the body of the book by Bespaloff.
Syntactical
- of, relating to, or according to the rules of syntax
Existentialism/existentialists
-is a 20th Century philosophical movement that views human existence
as having a set of underlying themes and characteristics, such as anxiety,
dread, freedom, awareness of death, and consciousness of existing. Existentialism
is also an outlook, or a perspective, on life that pursues the question of the
meaning of life or the meaning of existence. It is this question that is seen
of paramount importance, above both scientific and other philosophical
pursuits.
Hypertrophic - excessive growth or accumulation of any kind.
Fecund - intellectually productive or inventive to a
marked degree fecund imagination>
Obdurate – unmoved
by persuasion, pity, or tender feelings; stubborn; unyielding.
Consubstantial
– Of the same substance, nature, or essence.
Insouciance
– lack of care or concern; indifference.
Plaint – An
utterance of grief or sorrow; a lamentation.
Vicissitudes
– the quality or state of being changeable : mutability.
Impalpable –
incapable of being felt by touch : intangible
Parcae – In
ancient Roman religion and myth, the Parcae (singular, Parca)
were the female personifications, often called the Fates in English.
Disabused –
to free from a falsehood or misconception.
Demiurge – a
Platonic subordinate deity who fashions the sensible world in the light of
eternal ideas.
Fatum – the god of destiny; originally the word 'fatum' meant 'the word
of god' and in Greek religion it came to include the divinities of destiny,
e.g., the Moirae, Parcae, and Sibyls; near the rostra in Rome stood statues of
the Fata, the three Sibyls.
Plaint – An
utterance of grief or sorrow; a lamentation.
Pathos – an
element in experience or in artistic representation evoking pity or compassion.
Ethos – The moral element in dramatic literature that determines a character's action rather than
his or her thought or emotion.
Immanent – Naturally
part of something; existing throughout and within something; inherent;
integral; intrinsic; indwelling.
Eudaimonism
– The good composed of all goods; an ability which suffices for living well;
perfection in respect of virtue; resources sufficient for a living creature.
Acerbity – sourness,
with roughness or astringency of taste; harshness or severity, as of temper or
expression.
I do not
agree with many of the quotes that follow, others appear to be insightful. I present them here to be considered and as a
source of contrasts to my own ideas concerning The Iliad. I cannot resist
occasionally commenting, and have done so in brackets and italics. [example]
Quotes:
1. Art Defined: “But although the artist’s problem seems to be
mainly technical, his real imp0ulse goes beyond this—it goes to universe; and
the true piece of art, even though it be the shortest lyric, must always
embrace the totality of the world, must
be the mirror of that universe, but one of full counterweight.” p. 12 (intro.)
2. Art, myth, and mathematics: “And this
explains the connection—at first surprising to us—between myth and
mathematics. For every real approach of
man to the universe can be called a presentiment of the infinite. Without this, not mathematics, nor myth, nor
art, nor any other form of cognition would exist.” p. 14 (intro)
3. Myth is the archetype of all thought: “Myth is the archetype of every phenomenal
cognition of which the human mind is capable. Archetype of all human cognition, archetype of
science, archetype of art—myth is consequently the archetype of philosophy
too.” pp. 15-16 (intro)
4. When Myth becomes religion: “Myth becomes religion when the mythical
model of the universe, hitherto merely cognate or expressed in certain visible
forms (of art, etc.) passes into the act of man, coloring his entire behavior,
influencing his daily life.” p. 16 (intro)
5. On the Gods: “Indeed, Homer’s humanization of the gods goes
a step farther. It is true that they are
not stripped of their abstract, mythical character; what they were they
remain—mere names of the gigantic forces they represent, forces which keep in
motion the model of the world and the struggle of man.” pp. 18-19 (intro)
6. Homer’s Greeks already an ancient people: “But the “Saffron Gatherer” of the eighteenth
century B.S. already indicates the free naturalistic culture of a ripening age,
characterized by the liberation of human personality, and the following period
is that of the luxurious palace of Knossos, contemporaneous with the romantic
mysticism of Ikhnaton’s Egypt.” p. 24 (intro)
7. On Hector as Hero: Hector, “man and among men a prince,” is
subject to apocalyptic mood of his time and, therefore, affectionately recognizes
the peaceful achievements of the civilization for which he is ready to fight
and to die. P. 25 (intro)
8. On Homer and the existence of Homer: “Whether Homer existed or not, he is
described as a very old man, blind as Milton, blind as Bach, blind as Fate; the
style of old age in all its greatness, coolness, and abstract transparency is
so obvious in his work that people had necessarily to conceive him in this
form. He himself became myth, and since
behind almost every myth stands some historical reality, we ought not to ask
whether he existed or not, but should simply accept him as the mythical old
man, the eternal paradigm of an epoch which demands the rebirth of myth.” p. 26 (intro)
9. On the recognition of true Art: “Thus it is only natural that there came to
be a mood of deep distaste for this kind of art [Iliad], and even for art at all.
This distaste is felt neither by the general public which, though
sometimes bored, consumes what it is served, nor is it felt by the
pseudo-artist who accepts success as a proof of his quality, but it is felt by
the few genuine artists, and by those who know that art which does not render
the totality of the world of art. If art
can or may exist further, it has to set itself the task or striving for the
essential of becoming a counterbalance to the hypertrophic calamity of the
world. And imposing such a task on the
arts, this epoch of disintegration imposes on them the style of old age, the
style of the essential, the style of the abstract. pp. 27-28 (intro)
10. Man and the individual in the “modern
world”: “Man as such is our time’s
problem; the problems of men are fading away and are even forbidden, morally
forbidden. The personal problem of the
individual has become a subject of laughter for the gods, and they are right in
their lack of pity. The individual is
reduced to nothing, but humanity can stand against the gods and even against
Fate.” pp. 31-32 (intro)
11. Concluding BUNK – Homer, Jesus, and Hitler;
the problem of relativism: “Hitler
thought to establish the new myth by forbidding the personal problems of men to
exist. But his was pseudo-myth, for the
real myth lives in the problem of human existence, the problem of man as such. However, if God has to exist, the devil
eventually has to serve Him , and it is just the Nazi terror which may still
ripen humanity for the ethical theogony [reference to the poems of Hesiod] in
which the new myth will receive its being: if this happens, Fate again will be
humanized, and presumably it will be not only human, as was Homer’s Force, but
also humane, in so far as it is in accord with Europe’s Christian
tradition homer’s Force was to have been
supplanted by Jehovah’s justice, Jehovah’s justice by Christ’s love, “Through
cruelty force confesses its powerlessness to achieve omnipotence.”” P. 32
(intro)
12. Hector described: “In the crowd of mediocrities that are
Priam’s sons, he stands alone, a prince, born to rule. Neither superman, nor demigod nor godlike, he
is a man and among men a prince. He is
at ease in a kind of unstudied nobility that permits neither pride in respect
to the self nor humbleness in respect to the gods. Loaded as he is with favors, he has much to
lose; and there is something in him that sets him above the favors, the natural
endowments—his passion for defying destiny.”
p. 39
13. Power of Andromache’s plea: “It is on Andromache’s account, more than on
his people’s, his father’s, his brothers’, that the thought of the future
tortures him. The very image of the
brutal fate that awaits her makes him wish for death. . . The pain of this
leave-taking does not modify his decision which has already been made. “ p. 40
14. The final flight and fight between Achilles
and Hector – example of Bespaloff’s miss-reading of The Iliad: “. . . Hector
feels weakness seize him; when he catches sight of his leaping adversary, he is
no longer master of his terror. Time
after time he [Hector] has turned the tide of battle, he has taken the measure
of Ajax and the very bravest of the Achaians; yet now he, the dauntless,
“leaves and takes to flight.” Homer
wanted him to be a whole man and spared him neither the quaking of terror nor
the shame of cowardice. “Ahead flees a
brave man, but braver still is he who pursues him at top speed.” . . . he turns and faces his enemy, having
first mastered himself. [Actually Justice, Athena, had to trick him
into combat once Apollo had deserted him.] “I no longer wish to flee you [he lies], son of Peleus. . . . It is
over. . . . I will have you or you will have me.” What he fled from, what he now confronts, is
not the gigantic Achilles,” but his own destiny [Justice]; he meets the appointed hour when he will be sent to
pasture in Hades. At least he will not
die without a struggle, and not without glory.
Dying, he begs Achilles for a last time not to give his body to the
dogs. And for a last time his conqueror,
drunk with cruelty, [NO!!! impelled to do
justice at the cost of his own life.], is obdurate [unyielding] to his
plea.” p. 42
15. On Justice and the deaths of Hector and
Achilles: “Hector has to pay for
Patroclus’ inglorious death, just as Achilles, later on, will pay for the death
of Hector. [Wrong – Hector was a murderer; he killed an unarmed prisoner of war
who was wounded, helpless, and naked.
Achilles, on the other hand, gave himself a sacrifice on the Alter of
Justice.” To compare Hector’s death to
Achilles is like comparing Hitler’s to Paton’s – it approaches the obscene.] p.
43
16. The
Iliad as tragedy – not a romance: “Who is good in the Iliad? Who is bad?
Such distinctions do not exist; there are only men suffering, warriors
fighting, some winning, some losing.” p.
48
17. Some thoughts on Thetis: “Zeus, after all, outraged the goddess in her
by delivering her to Peleus, whose bitter old age weighs heavy on her immortal
youth. She does not forget the injury,
and she remains much less the wife of Peleus that the Sea’s daughter and
Achilles’ mother.” p. 54
18. On the return of Hector’s body: “And in the end, it is to Thetis that Zeus
turns to get this madman to come to his senses and restore Hector’s remains to
Priam. On this mission, she is al
tenderness and consolation. “She sits
down beside him and caresses him with her hand and speaks to him, calling him
by all his names.” Achilles submits to
the gods’ command, conveyed to him by his mother: the untamable is tamed; in
obedience he finds for a moment the serenity that is always eluding him.” [Bunk –
the decision was Achilles, he was not lulled into some mood by the caresses of
his mother but chose to act in accordance with Justice, and in obedience to the
Natural Law that is the gods.] p. 55
19. On the love of Achilles for Patroclus: “For Achilles, self is at the center of
love. What he adores in Patroclus is his
own reflection, purified—in Thetis, the sacred origin of his line. [More
obscene bunk – If all Achilles loves in himself why would he give away his life
and future happiness to obtain Justice?]
p. 56
20. On Achilles’ motivation: “Destiny, he knows, can “carry him off to
death,” by two quite different routes.
He has chosen the steep road that ends on the edge of the abyss. He will sacrifice home-coming, reunion with
his father and his son, for the pleasure of massacring the Trojans, avenging
Patroclus, and watching bot friends and foes quake at the sight of him.” [Bunk,
Bunk, BUNK – This is the greatest show of Professor Bespaloff’s ignorance and
bias. Achilles did not sacrifice all he
and his mother worked so hard to provide him with, the love of his
grandchildren, for the rubbish Bespaloff opines. He, as Socrates explained in his apology,
sacrificed his life for Justice. To
condemn Achilles for making war on Hector brings dishonor on any hero who gives
his life for a just cause. Every soldier
who died to defeat the Nazis of turn back the monsters of Marxism is thus
disrespected. ] p. 57
21. On Helen: “Of all the figures in the poem she is the
severest, the most austere. Shrouded in
her long white veils, Helen walks across the Iliad like a penitent; misfortune and beauty are consummated in her
and lend majesty to her step. For this
royal recluse freedom does not exist; the very slave who numbers the days of
oppression on some calendar of hope is freer than she. What has Helen to hope for? Nothing short of the death of the Immortals
would restore her freedom, since it is the gods, not her fellow men, who have
dared to put her in bondage, Her fate
does not depend on the outcome of the war: Paris or Menelaus may get her, but
for her nothing can really change. She
is the prisoner of the passions her beauty excited, and her passivity is, so to
speak, their underside.” [I will let Euripides’ tragedy, The
Trojan Women, speak for me on this. Hecuba explains to the scheming Helen, that
her” lust became her Cyprus.”] p. 61
22. Aphrodite, Cyprus, rules Helen: “Aphrodite rules her despotically; the
goddess commands and Helen bows, whatever her private repugnance.” [See my
comment in 21 above.] p. 62
23. How Homer presents beauty: “Homer carefully abstains from the
description of beauty as though this might constitute a forbidden anticipation
of bliss. The shade of Helen’s eyes, of
Thetis’ tresses, the line of Andromache’s shoulders—these details are kept from
us. No singularity, no particularity is
bought tour notice; yet we see these women; we would recognize them. One wonders by what impalpable means Homer
manages to give us such a sense of the plastic reality of his characters.” p. 67
24. Priam blames the gods for his own failings –
this is his excuse and Bespaloff’s opinion of it: Here—and this is unusual—the poet himself,
speaking through Priam, lifts his voice to exonerate beauty and proclaim it
innocent of man’s misfortune. “I do not
blame you. I blame the gods, who
launched this Achaian war, full of tears, upon me.” The real culprits, and the only ones, are the
gods, who lie “exempt from car,” while men are consumed with sorrow. The curse which turns beauty into destructive
fatality does not originate in the human heart. The diffused guilt of Becoming
pools into a single sin, the one sin condemned and explicitly stigmatized by
Homer: the happy carelessness of the Immortals.” p. 68
25. All war is the war for Helen: “Meanwhile Helen stands helplessly watching
the men who are going to do battle for her.
She is there still, since nations that brave each other for markets, for
raw materials, rich lands, and their treasures, are fighting, first and forever,
for Helen.” p. 69
26. More blaming of the gods while praising
heroes: “Everything that happens has
been caused by them [gods], but they take no responsibility, whereas the epic
heroes take total responsibility even for that which they have not caused.” p. 74
27. On the goddesses and the judgment of Paris: “But here, again, truth to human experience
somehow moves this marital farce to a plane of more substantial reality. There is Hera with her big stupid eyes, her
obstinacy more brutish than evil, and the real genius she shows while
subjecting Zeus to a successful “war of nerves,” from which she always comes
off with the honors. There is Aphrodite,
all smiles and shims, enchanting and futile in her weakness, yet not so
defenseless as she seems. There is
Pallas Athena, a warrior with a man’s muscles, expert and treacherous, who can
send Ares rolling to the ground with the force of a single blow, who knows how
to harbor a grudge and let rancor steep within her until her revenge is
brewed. These are the three goddesses
involved in the judgment of Paris, and each in her own way reveals the other
side of the eternal feminine whose tragic purity is embodied in Andromache,
Helen, and Thetis.” p. 76
28. Homer portrays war as it is: “Homer and Tolstoy have in common a virile
love of war and a virile horror of it. They
are neither pacifist nor bellicist [one who advocates war]. They have no
illusions about war and they present it as it really is, in its continual
oscillation between boisterous animal spirits that break out in spurts of
aggressiveness and the detachment of sacrifice in which the return to the One
is consummated.” p. 83
29. The death of a soldier: “He tumbled, as an oak tree tumbles, or a
poplar, or a slender pine tree that carpenters with freshly ground axes lay low
on a mountain top to make a ship’s keel.
Even so he lies, measuring his length on the earth, before his horses
and chariot, moaning and clawing the bloody dust.” p. 84 (Homer’s own words)
30. What we fight for: “In the same way, during the perilous attack
on the wall that protects the Achaian ships, Hector, as he reassembles the
Trojans and the Allies for the assault, weighs the force that each individual
has in reserve for the defense of his “goods”: an earth and a sky, loved ones,
things long cherished that have dissolved into the very substance of life. “One omen is best, to fight for one’s
country,” he tells Polydamas. . . . The
necessity imposed on the individual by the threat of slavery or annihilation
forces him to endure these truths, but it does not dissolve his personality in
the anonymous mass; it denudes him but at the same time it exalts him.” pp. 86-87
31. The power of Priam’s plea: “In insisting on his right to pity, the
vanquished is not bowing down to destiny in the person of the mane he is entreating. The unheard-of ordeal he inflicts on himself,
equal to the love that sustains him, has nothing base about it” p. 98
32. Miss-statement of Achilles nature: The perfect conformity of his [Achilles] nature
to his vocation of destroyer makes him the least freeperson there is; but it
give him in return a bodily freedom which is in itself a magnificent spectacle.” [The
truth is that Achilles is the most free man on the field, he alone choses for
himself his fate.] pp. 99-100
33. Miss-statement of Achilles choice: “The glory he has chosen in preference to a
long life is the immortality of omnipotence not the immortality of the soul.” [Achilles
chose to go home and live in peace – he only goes to war to answer the crimes
of Hector, to fight for justice, to defend the self-evident truth]. p. 105
34. Reason and Myth (Faith): When reason
can go no further, he [Plato] lets myth take over” p. 116
35. A claim that law is man-made – BUNK: “Law is an altogether human work, a fragile
bridge more durable, however, than it looks, as the swell of the passions sweep
it without submerging it. IF it falls to
pierces, the great lawmaker is there, ready to do it over and perfect it. He is working on the foundations of the just
city, trying to make them solid. The
harshness of Creon is as alien to him as Antigone’s intransigence; he
negotiates with life, knowing it suppleness and inflexibility. He tries to blend it to the commandment of justice,
and justice to the commandment of necessity.
He deals in compromise, to be sure, but hold compromise between two
colliding absolutes. [What a relativist rant – an unreasonable
claim. Two truths cannot contradict each
other.] p. 122
36. Solon and Athenian Justice:
“She [the Earth] will bear witness well for me before the seat of Justice,
grandmother of the Olympian gods, black Earth whose boundaries I have just now lifted,
planted on all sides, a slave formerly and now free. . . I have written laws
that are the same for the miscreant and for the upright man, ordering for all a
very straight justice.” pp. 124-125
37. More relativist equivocation on Truth and
Justice: “But what could be more
Greek, more essentially Athenian, than this solidarity of justice and joy on
the earth set free by free men?
Transcendent justice and justice immanent in life do not always
coincide; the lawmaker’s takes is to reduce the interval that separates them to
a minimum. pp. 125-126
38. Christianity the synthesis between Judaism
and Hellenism: Christianity effected
a tremendous synthesis between messianic religion and the mystic philosophies
that were prevalent in Greece at a time when the distance between Judaism and
Hellenism was most considerable.” p. 126
I disagree with much of what I read and hear –
it is a man’s duty. I read this book
with growing skepticism. The attempt to
impose the Bible into the Iliad was troubling and the constant relativist point of view disconcerting.
I believe gave me much food for thought and plenty of points to rail against
when I finally get around to writing my book, Re-righting Achilles.
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