Defining Politics: On History and Political Thought in Homer's Iliad, with a Focus on Books 1-9

The Iliad is a work of great literary complexity that contains profound insights and a wide-ranging account of the human condition. Some of the most important recent scholarly work on the poem has also emphasized the political dimension of Homer’s account. In this dissertation, I aim to contribute to our understanding of the Iliad as a work of political thought. Focusing on books 1 through 9 of the Iliad, I will try to show how we can discover in it a consistent chronological or historical account, even though at many points that history is not presented in a linear way, in the poem itself. Through various references we are able to discern an historical account of the entire cosmic order. Homer focuses on the newly established Olympian gods and, therewith, their need to enforce the crucial separation between themselves and human beings: that is, between their own status as immortals, and our condition as mortals. Homer’s history of the Trojan War, in turn, conveys crucial lessons about politics and the human condition. The dissertation traces the history of the war as it emerged from a private struggle and developed into a public war. That historical narrative arc allows Homer’s readers to compare regimes that exhibit varying degrees of political phenomena. The dissertation shows that, as the Iliad’s history of the Trojan War unfolds it clarifies how politics stands in relation to the other spheres of human existence – that Homer’s poem provides us with a fundamental account of politics, of justice, of the promise and limits of human virtue, and of how the political and other aspects of existence serve to define one another. Further, the sphere of politics is shown to illuminate other, sometimes more pressing or more important, spheres of human existence - not least, those of family and friendship. Through considering these elements of Homer’s poem, the dissertation brings to sight a number of vital discoveries about politics and the human situation.Ph.D.2018-05-02 00:00:0