Dearness and death in the Iliad

Readers have often pointed out that representations of dying warriors in the Iliad, despite the impersonal, unreflective, heterodiegetic form of narration, are typically suffused with a certain pathos. What do we mean by "pathos" in this context? It is argued that we are referring to a group of distinguishable emotions related to affiliative attachment, elicited by a number of recurring motifs or situation types. Characters perceived as dear and as embodying dear principles are vulnerable, suffer and die, eliciting tenderness, compassion and grief, but also being moved and poignancy. Conceptualizations and expressions of these emotions in the Homeric text are discussed. It is further argued that the recurrent appeals to these emotions throughout the poem cannot be defended against the charge of sentimentality by merely referring to the "noble restraint" manifested by the narrator's dispassionate tone in this context. The ruptured affiliative bonds that form the basis for this pathos are not contemplated in an isolated, undisturbed fashion, but they are crucially presented as existing in opposition to other kinds of affective motivations that push and pull the Homeric heroes in other directions. Dearness makes a brave but futile stand against other values, pleasures and desires that also endow heroic life with meaning, especially the quest for eternal fame

The Dipylon oinochoe and ancient greek dance aesthetics

This article asks what the graffito incised on the Dipylon oinochoe (IG I-2 919, eighth century B.C.E.) reveals about the nature of the dance competition that it commemorates. Through a systematic analysis of the evaluative and descriptive meaning of the alpha tau alpha lambda omicron zeta and its cognates in early Greek epic, it is argued that a narrower definition compared to previous suggestions can be established. The word refers to the carefreeness that is specific to a child or young animal, and its uses typically imply a positive evaluation which is connected not only to the well-being that this carefreeness entails but also to the positive emotion of tenderness and the sentiment of care that it engenders in a perceiver. It is concluded that, when used to specify the criterion by which a dance contest will be adjudicated, the term refers to an aesthetic property that is repeatedly praised in archaic Greek texts in other words: that of dancing with the adorable but short-lived carefree abandon of a child

What Evokes Being Moved?

Recent attempts to define being moved have difficulties agreeing on its eliciting conditions. The status quaestionis is often summarized as a question of whether the emotion is evoked by exemplifications of a wide range of positive core values or a more restricted set of values associated with attachment. This conclusion is premature. Study participants associate being moved with interactions with their loved ones not merely for what they exemplify but also for their affective bond to them. Being moved is elicited when we apprehend the value of entities to which we are connected through basic as well as extended forms of affiliative attachment. These comprise people, certain objects, and even abstract entities, including the unshakable life-guiding ideas we call “core values”

Movement and Sound on the Shield of Achilles in Ancient Exegesis

The apparent animation of the figures portrayed on the shield prompted rival explanations by premodern critics, from supernatural motion and mechanical motion to poetic metaphor