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DESCRIBING and NARRATING in HOMER's ILIAD Elizabeth Minchin on at Least 20 Occasions in the Course of the Iliad Homer Slows

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DESCRIBING and NARRATING in HOMER's ILIAD Elizabeth Minchin on at Least 20 Occasions in the Course of the Iliad Homer Slows CHAPTER TWO DESCRIBING AND NARRATING IN HOMER'S ILIAD Elizabeth Minchin On at least 20 occasions in the course of the Iliad Homer slows the flow of narrative and allows himself to dwell on an object in the possession of one of his characters: a goblet, a bowl, a robe, or a lyre. For the most part these objects are familiar, even mundane; they are the furniture of everyday living. But these items are also extraordinary, because we en­ counter them in the Iliad in a context of war and suffering and because they are all endowed with remarkable qualities that set them apart from others of their kind. This, after all, is an epic poem; these items are prized possessions. The poet tells us, for example, of Pandaros' bow (4.105-11), the robes in Priamos' storechamber (6.289-95), Meriones' helmet of boars' tusks (10.261-71), Nestor's cup (11.632-37), Andro­ mache's headdress (22.468-72), the corselet taken from Asteropaios (23.560-62), and the mixing bowl offered as a prize for the footrace at the funeral games for Patroklos (23.740-47). What is the poet's purpose in lingering over such items? Certainly, he uses descriptions that contain a certain amount of detail to impress on his listeners the vividness of memory: his detailed account of a prized possession becomes a guarantee of the authenticity of the tale.I To some extent also he is celebrating the o~ects in question, as items that are beautiful and therefore significant in their own right. And he uses his descriptions to reflect in turn on the heroic lifestyle: on the acquisitive nature of the hero and on the widespread use in this society of handsome gifts in the mediation of friendships and alliances. But he has another motive. This we conclude from the distribution of such passages. Al­ most without exception these descriptions occur in association with events that we are to see as significant in the narrative line. When, at a critical point, the poet turns his eyes from one of his characters, and his I For discussion see Tannen (I 989: 138-40). 50 ELIZABETH MINCHIN or her concerns, and brings them to rest on something intimately con­ nected with that character, he effectively prolongs the dramatic moment. This technique is familiar to us in another medium, that of film.2 And the purpose is much the same. It is not that the poet is proclaiming the importance, or the centrality, of the object he describes; rather, he is insisting on the significance of the scene in which that object happens to play a minor role.3 Hence the poet's focus on the boars' tusk helmet that is lent to Odysseus for the daring night-raid on the Trojan camp; on the individual items of Agamemnon's armour (corselet, sword and shield) that he takes up in preparation for his aptO''CEta; on Nestor's great cup, from which he will be drinking when Patroklos interrupts a quiet con­ versation with Machaon (the prelude to a pivotal scene in the Iliad); and on Andromache's headdress at the moment when she sees Hektor's body being dragged by Achilleus across the plain. These descriptive passages, therefore, are by no means digressions, in the narrow sense of the word, from the storyline; they are tied to their context, no matter how far from the present moment Homer may appear to take us.4 My own contribution to the study of Homer's descriptive mode be­ gins with an analysis of the form of the small but elaborated descriptive passages that are scattered through the Iliad. Commentators have noted one or another feature within individual passages of formal description; but such passages have not yet been subject to the kind of scrutiny that I propose.s I shall demonstrate that such passages, delightful and distinc­ tive as they are in some respects, are in others routine. After discussing the form of such passages and having suggested reasons for their homo­ geneity at one level, I shall consider that element through which the poet not only prolongs his description but also individualises the item in question: a brief narrative, or perhaps simply a fragment of a narrative.6 2 On this point see Edwards (1987: 86). 3 See Lukacs (1962: 86-89). Following Lessing (1984: ch. 16, esp. 78-84), Lukacs observes that Homer does not aim to produce in words a detailed account of what he wants us to see, for this would be superfluous to the story. What is remarkable about all those objects that Homer describes in the course of the lliad is that they have been caught up in human affairs at a critical moment in the narrative. This, Lukacs claims, is the source of their poetic quality. 4 See Austin (1966: esp. 299-300, 303, and 307), where he observes that "[e]xpansions are not ornaments but an essential part of the drama". 5" See, for example, Kirk (1985) on the sceptre at 2.!0lff., the aegis at 2.447ff., and the bow at 4.105ff, esp. 110. Andersson ( 1976: ch. I at 35) almost anticipates such a study in his brief reference to what he calls 'genetic description'. 6 I shall discuss in this paper those passages of description that are prolonged by a .
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