For Friday: Book XXIV: Achilles and Priam (pp.158-177)
Only ONE question this time, a short essay response (so give me a good-sized paragraph full of thoughtful ideas and try to connect it to a specific passage or two in the reading)…
This is the last book
of The Illiad, and it literally ends
with the line, “That was the funeral of Hector, breaker of horses.” The Greeks believed in a term called catharsis, which means a sense of cleansing
that invokes the audiences’ fear, pity, and understanding. Usually a tragedy contains some element of
catharsis so that the audience can see themselves in the drama, feel sympathy/understanding
for the characters, and leave feeling renewed or enlightened. Do you think Book XXIV of The Illiad does this? Does it leave us feeling emotionally “cleansed”? Are good and evil, right and wrong, somehow
balanced once again? Is the world made
right? Or are things still left askew, broken,
and confused? What do you think the poet’s
intention was in this final book/chapter of the poem?
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