The Poetics of Supplication 0801429986, 9780801429989

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THE POETICS OF SUPPLICATION

A volume in the series

MYTH AND POETICS edited by Gregory Nagy A full list of titles in the series appears at the end of the book.

THE POETICS OF SUPPLICATION Hon1er's Iliad and Odyssey KEVIN CROTTY

CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS ITHACA AND LONDON

Copyright © 1994 by Cornell University All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. First published 1994 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America @The paper in this book meets the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-I984.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Crotty, Kevin, 1948The poetics of supplication : Homer's Iliad and Odyssey I Kevin Crotty. p. cm. - (Myth and poetics) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN o-8o I 4-2998-6 I. Homer-Criticism and interpretation. 2. Epic poetry, Creek-History and criticism. 3. Rites and ceremonies in literature. 4· Rites and ceremoniesGreece. 5· Sympathy in literature. 6. Oral tradition-Greece. 7. Grief in literature. 8. War in literature. I. Title. II. Series. PA4037.C685 I994 883'.oi-dc2o 94-2026I

For Anna Brodsky

Contents

Foreword, by Gregory N agy Preface

PART I. PITY AND SUPPLICATION IN THE

IX Xl

ILIAD

I

Eleos and Book

2

Fathers and Sons and the Warrior Society Eleos and the Warrior Society Memory and Supplication Supplication and the Poetics of the Iliad

3 4

5

24 of the

Iliad

PART 11. SuPPLICATION AND PoETICS IN THE 6 7 8 9

Telemachus' Supplication Morality and the Belly Supplication and Narrative Song and Philotes Conclusion Bibliography Index Locorum General Index

I

3

ODYSSEY

24 42 70

89

I05 I07 I30

I6o I8I 2II 2I7 227 234

Foreword Gregory Nagy

The Homeric Iliad cannot give us the last word on Achilles. Despite the claims of various recent studies, including an influential con1mentary on the last of the twenty-four books of the Iliad, the hero of this epic does not come to terms with our own expectations of his humanity wh~n }le encounters face to face, in the epic's near-final scene of vicarious gg~f,'the rnourning father of his deadliest enen1 y. The ceremony of supplication that takes place at this moment in the Iliad creates an emotional effect so powerful-and so troubling-that it will take another epic, this tin1e, the Odyssey, to follow up on its resonances. This insight into the interplay of the Iliad and Odyssey becon1es a central achievement of Kevin Crotty' s Poetics of Supplication, which explores how the emotion of eleos forces the n1ain hero of each of these two epics to reengage his whole life experience. This emotion, which we translate as "_r.!ty~' and which the ancient Greeks publicly enacted in ceremonies of supplication, is the driving force behind the poetics of heroic redefinition in these epics. Moreover, this distinctly Greek idea of \Pity ,becomes the rationale for epic's own continuing self-redefinition. f'o(Crotty, supplication thus serves as a model for the poetics of the Iliad and the Odyssey. The suppliant's message of grief rnust turn things around: the winner's perspective must be reshaped by that of the loser. The myth of the hero-and thereby the poetic form of epic itself-is being s~~ped ,by the ceremony of supplication, since the§ that is generated by this ce~em9ny will radically affect the hero's outlook on his own-icfe.ntit·y: Thus this book amounts to a defense of pity, following a l~A~~-~,totle himselfhad taken in rehabilitating eleos after Plato's attack.

IX

x

Foreword

In doing so, it also amounts to a declaration of emancipation from the confines of a special kind ofHomeric criticism that insists on thinking of the hero as the creature of a specious reality called "Homeric warrior society." As Crotty argues, a hero such as Achilles experiences a kind of "---,,, .. . .' pity that is unique not only to his Iliadic situation but also to the passionate and uncon1promising self that keeps on asserting itself within this situation. ;"~"" The key to the role ofr_rity)as a shaper of both plot and character in Homeric narrative is Crotty's model of supplication as a ceremony. This book makes a hermeneutic distinction between ritual and ceremony, in that the second of the two is concerned specifically with individual responses·to traditional situations. Thus the ceremony of supplication serves to individualize the epic, even the myth of the hero. The poetics of supplication become the poetics of individuality. ···~

Preface

In The Poetics of Supplication, I explore the connections between a particular ceremony and the poetics of the Iliad and the Odyssey. I present the Homeric epics as tales of griefs, intended-like the suppliant's plea-to rouse memories of tnortal vulnerability and to excite the emotion of pity. The title of this book carries two senses. On the one hand, I argue that the ceren1qny of supplication, as presented in the Iliad, has a complex intern;I;t:~c-t·~~