Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
  1. Home
  2. Books
  3. Ransom, Revenge, and Heroic Identity in the Iliad
  • Cited by 25
      • Show more authors
      • You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Select format
    • Publisher:
      Cambridge University Press
      Publication date:
      30 October 2009
      27 May 2002
      ISBN:
      9780511497797
      9780521806602
      9780521032780
      DOI:
      https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511497797
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.537kg, 250 Pages
      Dimensions:
      (228 x 152 mm)
      Weight & Pages:
      0.376kg, 252 Pages
      • Subjects:
      Classical Studies, Classical Literature
    You may already have access via personal or institutional login
    • Selected: Digital
    Add to cart View cart Buy from Cambridge.org
    Subjects:
    Classical Studies, Classical Literature
    Information

    Book description

    From beginning to end of the Iliad, Agamemnon and Achilleus are locked in a high-stakes struggle for dominance based on their efforts to impose competing definitions of loss incurred and the nature of compensation thereby owed. This typology of scenes involving apoina, or 'ransom' and poine, or 'revenge' is the basis of Donna Wilson's detailed anthropology of compensation in Homer, which she locates in the wider context of agonistic exchange. Wilson argues that a struggle over definitions is a central feature of elite competition for status in the zero-sum and fluid ranking system characteristic of Homeric society. This system can be used to explain why Achilleus refuses Agamemnon's 'compensation' in Book 9, as well as why and how the embassy tries to mask it. Ransom, Revenge, and Heroic Identity in the Iliad thus examines the traditional semantic, cultural and poetic matrix of which compensation is an integral part.

    Reviews

    '… this book is an important contribution to the understanding of the Iliad. It will prove useful to all those studying Homeric poetry and society.'

    Source: Journal of Hellenic Studies

    'This book offers a rich feast of theory and literary analysis. Wilson's scholarship is first rate and her analysis, though subtle and with many strands, is clear and coherent … It is a noteworthy contribution both to the study of power and dominance in Homeric society and to the poetics of the Iliad.'

    Walter Donlan - University of California, Irvine

    '… Donna Wilson succeeds brilliantly in untangling an interpretive knot that has bound up the exegesis of the Iliad for centuries. … [She] provides a sensitive and sophisticated analysis of the cultural poetics of compensation, showing that the crucial terms … are not major structuring concepts with the Iliad, but within Greek society, and not just static concepts, but ones essentially open to constant rhetorically charged renegotiation.'

    Richard Martin - Antony and Isabelle Raubitschek Professor of Classics, Stanford University

    Refine List

    Actions for selected content:

    Select all | Deselect all
    • View selected items
    • Export citations
    • Download PDF (zip)
    • Save to Kindle
    • Save to Dropbox
    • Save to Google Drive

    Save Search

    You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

    Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
    Cancel
    ×

    Contents

    Contents

    Metrics

    Altmetric attention score

    Full text views

    Total number of HTML views: 0
    Total number of PDF views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    Book summary page views

    Total views: 0 *
    Loading metrics...

    * Views captured on Cambridge Core between #date#. This data will be updated every 24 hours.

    Usage data cannot currently be displayed.

    Accessibility standard: Unknown

    Why this information is here

    This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.

    Accessibility Information

    Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.