Flesh and Spirit in the Songs of Homer A

This book offers a newly integrated interpretation of Homeric man. The author starts with the working hypothesis that, in this poetry, the human being is not divided into two parts - inner and outer; body and soul; flesh and spirit - but stands as an indivisible unity. The last part of this analysis leads to a reassessment of the Homeric psuche .

Michael Clarke is Lecturer in Ancient Classics at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth.

Texts, Abbreviations, and Commentaries

xii

Part I: Prologue

Homeric Words and Homeric Ideas

Reading Homer in isolation

4

(5)

Religion and world-picture

9

(4)

Words and ideas

13

(9)

Poetic language and poetic ideas

22

(4)

The integrated study of Homer

26

(5)

Semantic reconstruction

31

(6)

The Categories of Body and Soul

Asking the right questions

37

(2)

Dualism of body and soul is insidious

39

(3)

Dualistic words and categories constrain scholarship

42

(5)

The quest ahead

47

(6)

Part II: The Language of Thought and Life

The Breath of Life and the Meaning of ψυχη

The shape of Homeric man

53

(2)

Does the living man have a ψυχη?

55

(6)

Mental Life and the Body

&thetas;υμos and its family

61

(1)

The idea of psychological identity

61

(2)

The mental apparatus has many names but is undivided

63

(3)

Mental agents and functions are one

66

(3)

The sliding scale of agency and function in Iliad I-VI

69

(4)

Mental life is in the breast

73

(6)

Mental life ebbs and flows as breath and fluids

79

(11)

New emotions flow into the mental apparatus

90

(2)

The flow of bile, χoλos

92

(5)

The stuff of thought alternately softens and coagulates

97

(4)

In folly the stuff of thought is dispersed

101

(5)

Homeric psychology is a seamless garment

106

(3)

The defining factor can be in movement not substance

109

(6)

The body and the self are one

115

(1)

Body and not-body

115

(4)

As voos thought goes beyond the apparatus in the breast

119

(10)

Part III: Death and the Afterlife

The Dying Gasp and the Journey to Hades

Loss of ψυχη is not departure of soul from body

129

(1)

Loss of &thetas;υμos is loss of breath and life

130

(3)

Loss of ψυχη is likewise loss of breath

133

(4)

Loss of ψυχη can be its annihilation

137

(2)

&thetas;υμos can be lost temporarily by swooning

139

(1)

ψυχη is gasped out, &thetas;υμos is breathed back in

140

(4)

ψυχη, ψυχρos, ψυχω refer to coldness, breath and blowing

144

(3)

ψυχη has two senses in two narrative contexts

147

(1)

The image of the flying ψυχη yokes the two together

148

(3)

The image of flight emerges from that of lost breath

151

(6)

The Corpse and the Afterlife

The corpse has lost vitality but still holds identity

157

(3)

To die is to waste away enfeebled

160

(1)

When is the corpse distinguished from the dead man?

161

(4)

Mutilation of the corpse is mutilation of the man

165

(1)

Hades is beyond the darkness of death

166

(2)

Allusion to the descent in rhetorical and synoptic style

168

(2)

Mutilation is alluded to in the same way as Hades

170

(2)

The descent of ψυχη emerges from the descent of κ∈&phis;αλη

172

(6)

Hades is below the earth men stand on

178

(2)

The purpose of the funeral is social

180

(10)

ν∈κυs/ν∈κρos denotes both corpse and dweller in Hades

190

(1)

The dweller in Hades is corpse or shade

191

(3)

The shade is defined as remnant or as counterfeit

194

(4)

The shade's movement names it as ψυχη

198

(2)

The identity of the shade is indeterminate

200

(5)

The shade is an image of the undivided bodily man

205

(2)

These articulations are irreconcilable: a problem

207

(4)

Patterns of the relation between shade and corpse

211

(20)

Appendix: 1. The unity of the Nekuia

215

(10)

The authenticity of the Second Nekuia

225

(6)

Part IV: The Shaping of Myth

The Personalities of Death

How does the visible world relate to the mythical?

231

(1)

The divinities of death

231

(4)

Sleep has a fluid personality

235

(4)

The descent of darkness is the experience of death

239

(4)

Death approaches and seizes the victim

243

(8)

The planning of fate leads to death's fulfilment

251

(2)

The same names can be used without mythical import

253

(4)

Death comes from the arrows of Artemis and Apollo

257

(2)

Mythical forms in stories of the gods and in works of art

259

(2)

`Everything is full of gods'

261

(3)

Conclusion: The Dynamics of Mythical Image-making

The suppleness of myth

264

(2)

The divine society

266

(3)

Ares and war

269

(3)

Helios and Scamander

272

(4)

The supple identity of ψυχη

276

(1)

The double plane of causation

277

(5)

The double plane of death

282

(39)

Epilogue: Flesh and Spriti in Language and Lore after Homer

Reference

321

(20)

Index of Words

341

(6)

Index of Passages

347

(22)

General Index

369

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Flesh and Spirit in the Songs of Homer A Study of Words and Myths

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

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Flesh and Spirit in the Songs of Homer A Study of Words and Myths

Summary

Author Biography

Table of Contents

Supplemental Materials

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