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| English: intrpretation of the Shield of Achilles design described in the Iliad, by Angelo Monticelli (1778-1837) (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The CACW/ CAPN conference this year is on the subject of "decisions in antiquity". Legal scholars are organizing it, and no doubt that's what they had in mind. However, that's not what I work on. I thought about submitting an abstract on Iphigenia at Aulis, which after all is all about the decision to sacrifice Iphigenia, something no one wants to do, but somehow it happens after all. However, although it's an interesting subject, I haven't been working on it, and I'm not sure I have anything to contribute on the I.A. at this point.
So I thought, instead, about Memorial. And it immediately occurred to me that a very interesting thing about Memorial is that all of the decisions of the Iliad have been omitted from Memorial, along with the narrative. And that I would like to talk about. So here is the abstract I submitted: we'll see if it flies ...
The Decisions of Memorial
Alice Oswald's poem "Memorial", a re-translation of the death scenes in the Iliad, highlights the decision-making processes in the Iliad, by their absence in the modern poem.
Decision-making processes in the Iliad are given prominence. Important decisions governing the entire narrative are made by those high in the social hierarchy – gods, kings, and aristocrats – and the process by which they arrive at decisions is shown in detail. Achilles chooses glory over a long life, and then changes his mind; Zeus chooses whose death, Achilles or Hector's, weighs more in the balance at the critical moment; the Shield of Achilles displays an alternative decision-making process for the peaceful settling of disputes.
"Memorial", which removes the overarching narrative, the gods, and the major aristocrats, also removes all the points of decision of the Iliad, except for those small decisions individuals make which contribute to their own deaths. These omissions make each individual death seem inevitable, and the decision-making processes of the narrative illusory. For all the importance given to decision-making in the Iliad, argues "Memorial",the end was always known, and only the deaths were real.
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I am not sure that the observation that when you skip the story, you also miss out on all the decision-making, which is (after all) part of the story, is a deep insight into the nature of narrative. But it will be fun to think about.
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