Why is the Iliad so damn repetitive? I know Achilles is swift-footed after the 50th time Homer repeated it...

Why is the Iliad so damn repetitive? I know Achilles is swift-footed after the 50th time Homer repeated it, or that Atreus (father of Agamemnon) is a wise shepherd and horse-tamer.

Other urls found in this thread:

library.newschool.edu/files/findingaids/benardete/SB_03_09_Homeric_Hero_dissertation.pdf
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

I've been reading the Iliad for the past few months (I've adored it thus far). I think it's to reinforce the image of the character to the listener; keep in mind the epics were recited orally. What-is-said is not not coded as well as what-is-read.

It's to get it stuck in your head so you don't forget, cause they did a lot. Keep in mind they were slow at that time

I have to agree with this. The Iliad is a perfect illustration how an oral epic is distorted and mangled when it's written without proper editing to match the medium.

>Keep in mind they were slow at that time

actually they had much better memory than we do, the repetitiveness is so that they could literally memorize the entire book in a short amount of time

Because in its original form it was recited to an audience by a poet who had memorised the entire thing. It would be easier to memorise certain sentences and reuse them rather than a new way to express something every time.
Funny you picked up on it though, the fact it repeats itself so much is one of the main pieces of evidence for what I said above.

>it's another "I can't enjoy a 3000 years old text as I enjoy Game of Thrones so it must be shit" thread

Have you been re-reading it or just taking your time?

It was meant to be said out loud.
Traveling men would tell the tales.
They needed to learn them by heart so it's a nice little way to help learning.

I thought it was repetitve at first, but I began to appreciate purely because it helped me remember the names and the character relationships.

Its also actually how they addressed people.

>it's another "I feel threatened that someone dare say ANYTHING bad about muh old bearded fags instead of the criticism any sensible man might have expected upon his work, so I'll just do the sarcastic green-text thing, that'll show him!" post.

Pick up an audiobook version and read along.

The opening of this paper discusses why, and the significance of the epithets in appearing in different contexts.

library.newschool.edu/files/findingaids/benardete/SB_03_09_Homeric_Hero_dissertation.pdf

its easier to memorize that way. also it just how they talked, greeks today still do shit like that "yea that yorgos, you know the malaka from down the street with the tzatziki stain on his shirt, mother fucker owes me 3000 drachmas and his mother, you know the whore on the other side of the gyro place with her husband with the bad skin and his father who went to the jail, she owes me money too" every sentence has to be a paragraph with them.

>For the past few months
Are you reading it in the original greek?

Epithets to fit the metre most likely

You are correct about the metre

>last few months

what the fuck? The first time I read it, it was Fagles and it took me 2 days

i love you

can you explain pls

>fagles

yeah it sure is impressive reading a pleb translation in 2 days

*I adore it thus far

Present tense suits your sentence better. You seem to write clearer than the average user or I wouldn't have bothered to correct you. My suggestion is freely given so just disregard if you're bothered by it.

I would imagine that a mention of a character is followed by titles of sorts, with much being omitted save what is needed, as you said, to reinforce the character. If you're reciting an epic you want to glorify the heroes to keep your audience engaged. Written text isn't usually as emphatic. I've only read Fagles's and really liked it. I'm certain other translations deserve to be compared.

Why is the Rāmayana so damn repetitive? I know Rāma has strong arms after the 50th time Valmiki says it. Or that Dasarata, or Sita, or Hanumat....

It's a fucking poem op.

>tfw you will never be god-like

Like all the Greek epic poems, they were originally bar songs where one person was the lead singer, then the rest of the bar crowd would join in for the repeated lines (chorus).

>you will never get drink and sing with your fellows about your heroes and Gods

underfuckingrated and kekked

and yea op what they said. it's a memory aid for storytellers.

Epithets were a memory tool for oratory poets of the tradition, a way to plug in the necessary meter of a verse and free the mind to formulate the less strict verses on the fly

Its like you didn't even read the introduction of whatever version of the text you read in highschool

This is (mainly) the correct answer, and I'm surprised that no one thus far has explained it. Ancient epics were written in dactylic hexameter. In ancient Greek, metrical feet were measured with the pronunciation times of syllables rather than their stress (as in English). From what I understand, they were pretty strict about it, so an easy way to keep meter without fucking everything up was epithets.

The introduction to Robert Fagles' Iliad (Penguin Classics) explains it pretty well.

its formula dipshit

As other said, it's because it was made to be spoken and it would sound much different by someone with oratory story-telling skills than simply reading it.

Just read The Kaleva, it's overwhelmingly apparent it's a far better story if orated vs read (although still certainly a good read)

Lets settle this once and for all.
>Agamemnon and Achilles

Who was in the wrong?

Dang I don't usually like sci-fi art like this, but this is banger

bait

get the fuck out

IQ in the past was way lower, humanity is getting a lot smarter as civlisation speeds up.

Ancient Greeks are basically niggers.

Oral tradition, mutha.

>Agamemnon
>leads an army to avenge his brother being cucked by Paris
>nine years later cucks one of his own generals

>Why is the Iliad so damn repetitive? I know Achilles is swift-footed after the 50th time Homer repeated it, or that Atreus (father of Agamemnon) is a wise shepherd and horse-tamer

This actually triggered me. Safe space now please.

Because they had to make it easy for bards to memorize

>Menelaus
>cucked
Helen is miserable there and hates Paris (along with literally every other Trojan but Priam maybe) and loathes shitty Troy. Far from cucked desu.

Only after the fact, because the Achaeans still haven't given up after all this time

Which is in essence the thesis posited by Milman Perry, which seems to get at an important element of what's going on with the poem. On the other hand, as per Seth Benardete's study linked at , the thesis as usually taken doesn't end up saying anything about whether the epithets affect the content of the poem, with respect to how we're to understand certain characters in relation to their regular epithets. An example would be the epithet "great-hearted Achaeans" which is by Achilles in book 1, and then by Agamemnon several lines later, and never used again in the Iliad, while "great-hearted" is regularly used of the Trojans, suggesting that the use of epithets isn't completely arbitrary.

But that requires a good deal of reading and comparing that most readers simply don't have the time for.

The social institution that dictates Agamemnon's position of undue authority in the matter of others' property is wrong and has subsequently been advanced past by future generations. Furthermore, as Achilles points out, the same social institution that drives men to swear fealty to a Lord in a war that does not concern them is additionally wrong - though this particular line of ethics can only be drawn back as far as the Divine origination of the conflict in the first place, and ultimately one must consider whether it is ethical of Aphrodite to have gifted Helen to Paris which raises questions about the authority of the Gods that Greek mythology does not cleanly deal with, even if you accept for the sake of argument the Greek notion of women being physical property and deriving no authority of their own.

The more important point is that this ethical dilemna becomes a watershed moment in the development of both Homer's fictionalized epic Greece and the real 8th Century Greece he sang to, as the ancient regime Agamemnon represents has persisted until a point of gridlock with the more logical and ethically-minded Achilles, who in his inability to act according to his own natural will within the social system embraces a period of nihilistic anarchy that both deeply damages and redefines the very social system of the Hellenic soldiers on the beach.

If I remembered my Odyssey better (I'm actually going through the Iliad right now) I could probably point to Odysseus' own ethical dilemnas with the treatment of his comrades as a continuation of Achilles' social revolt.

It's not for the listener, it's for the speaker reciting the poem. These phrases might be descriptive, but they're also lyrical. It's like singing a song, once you've done it even once you know the tune to it, and the words only further convey the tune. It's how oral cultures survive so long, their forms don't actual allow for epics or history to be changed through recital.

that entire theory assumes the Epics we have transcribed possess some auteur, intentional and finalized vision. Which they obviously don't. Scholars still argue over whether XYZ lines are even canonical or were added or bastardized later.

It could be that in Homer's day there was some metatextual significance to the epithets, but despite the best efforts of the entirety of Western civilization that particular edge of the poem has been blunted by time.

Prose translation is fine for beginners

Why would it be bait?

Fuck you too buddy

Fagles is in verse

Nice meta-contradiction of your premise there.

The difference nowadays is that humans have easier access to information. This has nothing to do with intelligence (or "IQ" as you put it.) Any retard can use Google.

If you think older European civilisations were dumber than today's, you clearly haven't read their literary output.

The poet prescribes a varying set of descriptions for all of the characters. For the achaians as an example we have "Bronze Clad" "Well-Greaved" & "Bright-eyed" all being used to fit the metre, as these details are hardly necessary to really build the scene of the poem. Another example is the use of descriptors for achilles "swift-footed" "godlike" which are used interchangeably in order to fit the time.

>that part when Agamemnon list his captains and how many ships they have

You have to remember that the Iliad originated as an oral poem. Some scholars have theorized that, due to the near impossible nature of memorizing word for word an epic as long as the Iliad, orators most likely followed a formula for retelling the poem ad-lib. Previous to being committed to text during the Greek iron age, it was likely that everyone performing the Homeric poems told it slightly differently, but according to a rough formula.

cont. do a google search for oral-formulaic composition

>that part where Homer expertly ties together the disparate City-States of the Mediterranean by nationalizing them against a legendary foreign threat that skirts the line between being suitably deplorable and worthy of battle
>that part where he also canonizes Seven Against Thebes, preserving the earlier Chorale Theater works in the new era of the Oral Epics

That's like asking why Shakespeare uses the world "noble" so often.

Also remember that it's written in verse: lines were originally constructed to fit certain rhythm and meter standards.

In addition to the above mentioned "repetition for memory device" lines are sometimes "filled out" with varying lengths of the descriptions and appellations. That might not be terribly obvious if you're reading a version not arranged in verse.

Not necessarily. Attention to meter is a basic and translatable enough concept to not require a singular author. You wouldn't necessarily accuse Petrarch of having written all the Petrarchan sonnets, and yet they are all the same by definition.

>The introduction to Robert Fagles' Iliad (Penguin Classics) explains it pretty well.
This desu. Never skip the intro when reading classic texts.

STALLION

BREAKING

TROJANS

The thing that really stood out to me from when I read it years ago was every fight started with two guys throwing their spears at each other. Every time one of them got hit and died there was a line like "Darkness enveloped his eyes" or something like that.

At least he didn't go overboard with "bought a farm." I shudder whenever I read that phrase.

Is this a Starship Troopers reference or is there some other meme text I'm unaware of?

Bump

>You'll never experience people cheering and jeering for the catalogue of ships as the bard calls out their hometowns and places they all know

>bronze age horsefuckers

This severely frustrated me when I read it, is that bad?

same here user you are not alone