39 pages • 1 hour read
Barry StraussThe Trojan War: A New History
Nonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Marriage, Alliances and Honor
Whether it be Helen’s prestigious dowry and violated marital ties to Menelaus, or the allies responsible for propping up Troy’s resistance to the invading Greeks, bonds and rifts are central to both the fictional and the historical Trojan War. Geographically located at the juncture between two cultures, Troy is representative and exemplary of relations between abutting ancient states.
The impetus of Homer’s story also relies on the equality between opposing forces. Tension is sustained throughout his epic poems in much the same way it is during a match between two strong tennis players, or perhaps ancient gladiators. While this narrative device propels the retelling of an actual conflict in The Iliad, The Odyssey wages a far more psychological or metaphysical war between the will of the gods and that of a mere mortal, Odysseus. Matches between heroes are a fixture of the former epic, and their often contrasting and also complimentary nature locks them ever more firmly into battle. The leading warriors, Hector and Achilles, embody this reciprocity. Where Achilles is hot-headed and delights in killing, Hector is conservative and kills only in pursuit of honor.
The relation of the hero to his hubris, or the fatal flaw that brings about his downfall, also operates through reciprocity. It is only a matter of time until Achilles’s zeal and Hector’s pride lead them into hot water. The Greek word “hubris” originally had much stronger connotations of “presumption toward the gods,” and thus the very nobility of the mortal characters also constitutes their transgression. The pairing of heroes with their patron gods is another important way in which alliances and schisms structure these poems. The relationship between champion and god determines the mortals’ fortune. Moments of apparent omnipotence often produce hubris and ruin. Of all the social contracts that pattern the poems, at the most basic level, both Iliad and Odyssey examine the rupture and restitution of a marriage.
Divine Intervention
The frequency of divine interventions in Homer’s story may strike modern, majority-secular readers as more than a little implausible. Yet only with the arrival of empiricism in the 19th century have the divine and the mundane been separated. Earlier civilizations were far more comfortable with the overlay of these realities. Until the schism of the Catholic church, biblical typology was intrinsic to textual exegesis, and obscene marginalia borders many a sacred text.
Even for classical audiences, though, the intervention of the gods in Homer is sometimes too convenient to be swallowed without some erosion of the metaphorical “fourth wall.” Just as the Trojan walls were finally breached, so the gods’ actions threaten to interfere with the suspension of disbelief Homer requires to tell his tale. The interference of the divine is at times barely distinguishable from a plot device throughout much of The Iliad, in which champions are regularly plucked from the battlefield by their patron gods. Paradoxically, this lends credibility to Homer’s narrative, if not logically, then emotionally. The interference of the gods conveys a sense of the significance of the action, conferring mythic status upon Homer’s tale.
