Ransom, Revenge, and Heroic Identity in the Iliad

Download or read book Ransom, Revenge, and Heroic Identity in the Iliad written by Donna F. Wilson and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-25 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Wilson examines the nature of compensation--ransom and revenge--in the liad, offering a fundamentally new reading of the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles. She presents a detailed anthropology of compensation in Homer, located in the wider context of agonistic exchange, to demonstrate how the struggle over definitions is a central feature of elite competition for status in the zero-sum and fluid ranking system of Homeric society. The study thus asserts the integral role of compensation in the traditional, cultural and poetic matrix of this foundational epic.