Homer: The Importance of Religious Beliefs, Love, and War

Purpose: In our discussions so far of The Iliad, we have considered the importance of Achilles’ choice. His fate is up to him: he may either choose “aphthiton kleos” (“unwithering glory”) and a short life OR a long life without glory. Achilles’ choice has many implications—for himself and for all of the Greek and Trojan forces. In this assignment, you will make your own choice of a passage in Homer. And once you’ve selected your passage of text, you will argue for the importance of your choice.
Pre-Writing Tasks: 1.) select a continuous ~10-20-line passage of Homer (you may choose a passage from either The Iliad or The Odyssey that you find important, but the lines must be continuous). 2.) Read over your chosen passage several times: note words that stand out to you or confuse you; note the word order, concepts, images, anything that seems important. You might also consider the context of the passage—what happens immediately before and after your chosen passage? Does the passage speak to some change that occurs in plot or the development of a major character or theme of the epic? Is anyone speaking, or is the passage straight narration? 3.) start to think about the interplay between the text’s meaning and content—that is, compare what is being said to how it is being said; how does the expression affect the meaning? 4.) optional: if you are struggling to find something to say you might consider looking at the same lines in another translation of the text. Doing this is not a requirement and you will not get points added or detracted by consulting another translation.
Writing Task: (this section includes my expectations for your submission):
1. Include a cover page with: your name, section number, your title for your submission, and a transcription of the passage you’ve chosen to study, along with a notation of the Homeric text and translator. (note: if you have consulted another translation as well, you must transcribe both translations, noting the translator of each).
2. In about 500-750 words or ~2-3 pages, argue for the importance of your passage to the larger text. This prompt should be broken into its two parts: a) you should specify what is important about the passage; and b) you should specify what “larger text” the passage is important to. For part a), you might refer to the pre-writing suggestions above: the importance of the passage might reside in its language, its imagery, the plot that is revealed, etc. For part b), it could be your passage is important to our understanding the Book that the passage occurs in, or the epic as a whole; or perhaps the passage is important to our understanding the development of a particular concept or theme or character; or perhaps the passage reveals something important about Greek gender relations or religious belief or conceptions of friendship, etc. In any case, your essay should inform the reader why the particular 10-20 line passage you have chosen is important.
3. Upload your submission (including cover page and essay) in a .pdf or .doc format to NYU Classes Assignment 2 portal before the deadline below.
You could even use the following thesis prompt to help guide your writing:
· “Although only ## lines, the description/narration of ___________________ I selected is crucial for our understanding of ________________ in The Iliad/Odyssey because __________________.”
Text: You need to choose 10-20 continuous lines from either The Iliad or The Odyssey. I will assume that your translator is Robert Fagles for The Iliad or Emily Watson for The Odyssey unless you inform me otherwise.
Please use MLA Style to cite your sources. When citing Homer, you will only need to include book and line numbers in parenthesis, for example “(IX.100-120)” if you cite Book 9, lines 100-120. It will be understood from your cover sheet whether the cited lines refer to The Iliad or The Odyssey. If you’re citing different translations, you should indicate this in your paper, according to MLA conventions.