Free (Kindle) Homer's Iliad: The Shield of Memory [Academic Greek Literature Studies]

[ATDrake]

Homer's Iliad: The Shield of Memory by Kenneth Atchity (Wikipedia), a former film producer who also happens to hold a Ph.D. in comparative literature, is his vintage academic literature studies text, thoroughly examining and interpreting the titular classic ancient Greek epic, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Story Merchant.

This was originally published in 1978 by Southern Illinois University Press as part of their Literary Structures series and credited as by Kenneth John Atchity, and contains a foreword by series editor the late John Gardner (Wikipedia), who was a notable novelist and literary critic in his own right. This was apparently also Atchity's dissertation, which won him Yale University's John Addison Porter Prize (Wikipedia), according to Wikipedia.

Currently free @ Amazon (available to Canadians & in the UK and pretty much everywhere else Amazon sells worldwide, since this is being done via their KDP Select exclusive-or-else program)

Description
This book presents a refreshingly original interpretation of Homer's Iliad, inviting today's reader to rediscover the beauty, intelligence, and power of Western civilization's greatest epic poem.

For too many decades, academic classicists removed Homer from the mainstream reader's grasp with their claims that poets composing in the "oral tradition" are incapable of intentional organization. Instead, Atchity believes, metaphorical organization was introduced to the literate world by these "singers of tales."

The theme of the Iliad, Dr. Atchity points out, is the relationship between order and disorder, from the personal to the cosmic levels. Homer's poem, crafted from a memory so strong it created a culture around it, proclaims that once order has been disrupted by disorder it can be restored only through the total destruction of all disorderly elements.

To reveal the Iliad's guiding aesthetic, Atchity examines specific images connected with artistic creativity in the Iliadic world--artifacts such as shields, spears, and scepters, that form a cohesive symbolic pattern by which the character of men and gods is related to action, and one characteristic action to all other actions in the gradually unfolding thematic tension that defines the poem's world view. Helen's loom and Hephaistos' great shield of Achilles, the two central art images, reveal most clearly Homer's concept of his own artistry and of epic art in general: its origins, process, purpose, and impact on social reality.

Much of Atchity's interpretation of the Iliad deals with comparing the characters of Helen and Achilles, around whom center "galaxies" of characters and images that can be identified in terms of order and disorder. The historical art of Helen is contrasted with the poetic vision of the smith-god, and both with the art of Homer himself who in his unforgettable wrath-poem combines the particulars of history with universal insight into the human condition which is at once inspired and philosophical.

Atchity examines the poem's presentation of the art of words, of the singer and of the practiced speaker, to reach a clearer understanding of the relationships of memory, cognition, and action in the epic tradition. From this comes the striking conclusion that the Iliad is a poem about human love, the announcement of Homer's insight that it is the love between two individuals, a love over-leaping blood bonds and political bonds, that provides the basis for the achievement of the noblest humanity.

Atchity's reading of the Iliad is of inestimable value to ordinary readers--as well as students of epic poetry, heroic poetry, classical literature, Greek literature, and anthropology.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Homer's Iliad: The Shield of Memory by Kenneth Atchity (Wikipedia), a former film producer who also happens to hold a Ph.D. in comparative literature, is his vintage literature studies text, thoroughly examining and interpreting the titular classic ancient Greek epic, free for a limited time courtesy of publisher Story Merchant.

Thank you. This sounds interesting!

[GtrsRGr8]

Originally Posted by ATDrake

Homer's Iliad: The Shield of Memory by Kenneth Atchity
<snip>

Drat! I missed it as a freebie!

I put the title on the watch list at ereaderiq.com, for them to notify me when it goes down to 50 cents or lower. It had been free just last March (I didn't see it then), so maybe it won't be all that long before it becomes free again.

There are no reviews for the book, yet, at Amazon or GoodReads, but author Atchity writes in a broad range of genres, and all of his books at Amazon, at least, that are rated, are rated high to outstanding.

I have really become interested lately in the Odyssey and the Iliad. Frankly, the stories bore me to tears; I really don't understand why it is such a classic, etc. Probably because of a shortage of sophistication on my part.

However, I have become intensely interested in the composition and transmission of both the Odyssey and the Iliad. Scholars disagree over whether or not there really was a Homer, but they seem to be pretty much on the same page concerning the matter of the transmission of these books usually ascribed to him--they were passed on orally for many years (they were composed when it was a pre-literate time in that geographical area, and that was so for quite some time afterwards) after their composition. Can you imagine memorizing the entirety of one or the other of those books? Of course, the ones memorizing and reciting the stories used various mnemonic (memory-aiding) devices, but still . . . .

Scanning the table of contents of Atchity's book, he apparently doesn't say much about the composition and transmission of the texts. But it seems that there are many pieces of ancillary information that will be of help in my study.

Of course, because I am so frugal, and knowing that the book had been free before, I'm not going to pay more than about 50 cents for it under any circumstances. I've got plenty of other things to read about the subject that I can devote my time to, until the book goes down in price again.