Study Leave: Occasional Posts on Research, Writing and Other Academic Matters: Simile

Showing posts with label Simile. Show all posts

Monday, 28 January 2013

stymied at the last, augh! (ETA: unstymied!)

Diomedes and Glaucus (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I have nailed down all of the Homeric references for every single thing in all of Oswald's "Memorial", except one. I cannot find one. It has rocks, water, a dam and a marsh. None of these terms in any form I can think of searching for are showing up in the appropriate combination. I think I will just leave it for now.

However, I am very pleased that I think I have figured out what the last dozen pages of "Memorial" are doing. Each page has a single simile, drawn from somewhere in the Iliad. Each one begins with "like". We are done with the death scenes now – all of them are over, ending with the death of Hector – so we only have this string of similes. Each of them is a simile involving an aggregate – a flock of wild waterfowl, or of bees, or of wasps, or of flies, or of sparks. But the first of the 12 is the famous simile of the leaves:

Like leaves who could write a history of leaves
The wind blows their ghosts to the ground
And spring breathes new leaf into the woods
Thousands of names thousands of leaves
When you remember them remember this
Dead bodies are their lineage
Which matter no more than the leaves

- but what is like leaves? Well, of course it's the race of men, from the famous simile when Glaucus is talking to Diomedes, desperately – and successfully – trying to save his own life; so when you read all the rest of the similes, all of which begin with "like", they are all also about the race of men, in the aggregate. Oswald has through the rest of the poem gone one man after another, name by name by name; but now, at the end, she talks about how in the aggregate all men die, In a series of similes, each one of them drawn from a passage in which the fighters at Troy are described as a group.

(I still can't find the one about water, a dam, and a marsh though. I think I'll just ask the audience if anyone happens to know it...) - finally it occurred to me to ask a papyrologist, since papyrologists know everything. It's from the fight over the body of Patroclus: the 2 Aiantes holding off the flood of Trojans. So that is all the similes sorted.

Sunday, 27 January 2013

all the Homer things

This is not the same Polydorus.

Have been working away steadily for the last week but not updating, because I have to give a paper on Oswald next week and haven't got time to work, teach, write the paper and update too. I've got 8 more death scenes and about 16 similes to nail down. Whenever I see a new simile my heart sinks because I know it will likely be hard to find where Oswald has transplanted it from. On the other hand it's rewarding work. She did something particularly cool with the death of Polydorus as his father Priam looks for him, which she juxtaposed with the simile of Ajax guarding Patroclus' body like a lion guarding its cubs.

Still, it really is time to stop researching and start actually putting it together as a paper. But I'm so close to being done! This is a mistake I always make mind you - I always think that once the research is done the paper will write itself, possibly overnight while I'm sleeping, if I leave out a bowl of milk for the fairies...

In fact once the research is done the paper will take every bit as long to write as the research took to do, something Mac Wallace told me (frequently; over and over; in the hope that someday I would take note), and something I tell my students all the time as well.

I don't know if my students pay attention. I know I never do because there's always this One! Last! Thing! I want to find out first ... which of course will lead to another interesting thing ... but I must stop now. It's not as if I don't have enough material.

But I'm so close!

Sunday, 13 January 2013

Pedasus

I may have already used this cartoon (from toothpastefordinner.com.). It is the most perfect image of my creative process I've ever seen. Apparently everyone else on the web feels the same way, which is reassuring.

I'm back in the classroom. Predictably, this causes me to have all kinds of ideas about work all the time, but now I have no time to write them down. However, I'm giving a paper on Alice Oswald in 3 weeks, which is serving to focus my attention marvellously.

I have 18 death scenes and about the same number of similes to get through before I've finished the Homeric footnotes. Arguably I would be better off skipping finishing that until later and just get on with writing the paper on the part I've already done. But I'd like to feel as if I've got a firm handle on something, and how long can it take me to - yes, I know, months - however, I don't have months. So I've got to the yellow zone in the bar graph, where I still think it's possible to do all the things, if I just do them really fast.

Am also reading a book on "Stylish Academic Writing", by Helen Sword. It is unpleasant to suspect that the result of my work will be articles that I wouldn't want to read myself. I would like to write what I would enjoy reading if I happened on it. Helen Sword's book gives me a modest sort of hope that this is actually attainable. So thank you, HW.

So: Pedasus. Oswald tells the story of his death pretty much from the horse's-eye point of view; first he was fed by one group, that had stone mangers; then by another group, that had bags of grain; then he died. The entire battle scene and the other two horses are missing. I think they are recuperated (according to Helen Sword I should not be using that word here in this sense, because nobody will understand it and I'm just trying to impress people by talking fancy) by the simile, however. Oswald uses the "fig juice curdling milk" simile here. Homer uses it at the end of book 5, where Apollo uses φάρμακα to heal Ares' wound, as fast as fig juice curdles milk. Oswald uses it to refer to the speed of Pedasus' death; his blood, I suppose, coagulating in death, he turning from animate to a solid lump, at the same speed. But the interesting thing is (of course) that Ares is immortal, as Homer points out; and Pedasus' two companion horses are also immortal. If the spear had got one of them, they could have been healed, as fast as Ares. Bad luck, Pedasus.

Wednesday, 29 August 2012

Dolops, and whirlwinds

English: Menelaus (Ancient Greek: Μενέλαος) was a king of Sparta, the husband of Helen, and a central figure in the Trojan War. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A particularly dense passage today. In Homer, Dolops tries to kill Meges, remains hopeful of victory even after his spear bounces off Meges' armour and Meges slices off his helmet crest (or possibly yanks off the whole helmet), but is killed by Menelaus, who gets around him and rams a spear through him from behind. Oswald renders this as Dolops not believing he could die even after his spear fails, even after he loses his helmet:

"It was not until the beak of death
Pushed out through his own chest
That he recognized the wings of darkness".

She follows this with a short simile:

"Like when god unwinds his whirlwind
A single cloud moves into the middle sky "

which, like most weather similes, took awhile to locate; but it seems to be the beginning & end of a simile from book 16, where Patroclus has routed the Trojan army and the cloud of dust whirling up from their chaotic retreat is like a cloud sent by Zeus when he's sending a storm. There is a double shift here from Homer to Oswald.

First, the single cloud from Zeus heralding a storm = the 'beak of death' heralding Dolops' own death (the "wings of darkness").

But using a simile from the route of the Trojans in this passage, where they're still winning, reminds us of their coming defeat; so the spear through his chest heralds Dolops' death to him, as a single cloud augurs a storm; but Dolops' death, in turn, is the single cloud for us, that augurs the whirlwind of the coming Trojan rout.

Then spent the afternoon, or some of it, contemplating sacrificial virgins. We have decided to write the easy version of the paper - that is, the chunk that will be the easiest to write, about S1 Buffy - and see if we can find a journal that wants it.

Related articles

Wednesday, 6 June 2012

Promachus dies

Similes (Photo credit: teotwawki)

This was pretty straightforward. I hunted around for stuff on Homeric similes; turns out others have noticed the similes in Homer. Quite a few. Wilamowitz among them. Fortunately I'm not writing about the similes in Homer, hah, because if I were I'd be reading for 3 years before I could write a word. I read Taplin's review of Moulton's book on similes (Homeric Similes, 1977, certainly much has been written since, but it was the first thing that came to hand). (See, for a very cursory list, my rapidly growing "Secondary Literature" page. This is not, I need hardly say, a list of works I have already read. It is aspirational.)

Moulton assumes that when he sees subtlety in Homer it's because it's there, not because it accidentally accreted into the poem. I'm inclined to agree but again I am not writing about that, I am so very grateful to say; I am writing about Oswald, and I can certainly argue that subtlety in Memorial is "part of the poem and not there by coincidence" (Taplin, 184). I have to admit though that Memorial's reading of the Iliad highlights a great deal of subtlety in the original text; I suspect that's by design too.

Tuesday, 1 May 2012

a simile was left in place!

Statue of Teucer by Sir William Hamo Thornycroft (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oswald lists the 8 Trojans killed by Teucer in the same order Homer does, with rather less focus on Teucer and no mention of Ajax' name; then moves to Gorgythion, and this is the first place where she uses a simile that Homer uses of the same person Homer uses it for. But it is so perfect it's not surprising; and it is used of the sort of character that interests Oswald, that is, one who is never mentioned before or after. Teucer is aiming at Hector, misses, and hits Gorgythion, "someone's darling son", in the breast. Homer tells us his father was Priam and his mother Kastianeira, but Oswald doesn't follow her practice until now and record the mother's name. She moves on to the simile:

8.306-308 μήκων δ’ ὡς ἑτέρωσε κάρη βάλεν, ἥ τ’ ἐνὶ κήπῳ
καρπῷ βριθομένη νοτίῃσί τε εἰαρινῇσιν,
ὣς ἑτέρωσ’ ἤμυσε κάρη πήληκι βαρυνθέν

As a poppy in bloom in a garden drops its head to one side,

weighed down by the spring rain,

so his head sank down, weighed down by his helmet

(my translation: Oswald's is much better).

Really one thing reading Oswald so carefully is doing for me is renewing my appreciation of Homer. This passage can't be matched; it's perfect; and it's thrown away, in Homer, on a redshirt, on someone we will never hear of again. In Oswald, that's the whole point; the similes are not thrown away, but pointedly attached to the redshirts, the ones that otherwise went unmourned. But here she and Homer agree; Gorgythion should be remembered too.

The article I've linked below is thoughtful and interesting, and reminds me why I should stop reading only for historical and social context, as I tend to, because it's easy.

Sunday, 29 April 2012

data tidying

Similes (Photo credit: teotwawki)

Spent an hour tagging all of the various Homeric texts Oswald has used so as to have a sortable list of them. This doesn't work quite as well as I had hoped, but oh well. It is so easy to waste days, weeks, months fiddling with one's table of data instead of, you know, actually writing anything, because it's so much easier to tweak some tags and figure out how to print it out just so and should I put the texts that are similes in a different font, or the same font? Or should I double-tag them "similes" too? Is there some way to print that out? Hey, wouldn't it be interesting to put this in, like, a graph, and show where she's getting all the texts from - oh I know, it would be even better to have TWO graphs, one for the similes and one for the death scenes, and show what order she's putting them in in the poem, and the death scenes are linear but the similes are from all over the place, or wait, are they? maybe I could have ANOTHER graph that shows the narrative order of the similes by book, and then ... or maybe I could, you know, actually write something.

So, why don't I pause and make a few general comments now (of the sort that I may back up with charts! And tables! But not now): So far the deaths are coming from (so far) books 5 through 8. She's skipped a couple, well actually only one I think (Eioneus, beginning of Bk 7); but except that one, all the named deaths in those books are in "Memorial", and in the order given by Homer. She sometimes gives the name of the parents of the dead, sometimes not, but if the mother's name is given she always records it. She often doesn't bother to give the name of the killer, where in Homer that's usually the whole point (since the death is part of someone's aristeia.)

The similes on the other hand are drawn from all over the shop, and I have not looked for an order yet; interesting if there is one. The similes are all drawn from "famous scenes" - battle over the body of Patroclus; the battle at the ships; the weaving-woman simile that everyone knows - and she always repurposes them, by attaching them to unknowns, and often by reversing the subject and object, or otherwise targeting them differently. But she isn't making up any similes out of whole cloth; they're all Homeric too, so far.

Wednesday, 18 April 2012

Axylus is Hector

Scene from Book XXIV of the Iliad: Hector's corpse brought back to Troy (detail). Roman artwork (ca. 180–200 CE), relief from a sarcophagus, marble. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Here's Oswald on Axylus (Memorial p. 26):

Axylus son of Teuthras

Lived all his life in the lovely harbour of Arisbe

Looking down at the Hellespont

Everyone knew that plump man

Sitting on the step with his door wide open

He who so loved his friends

Died side by side with Calesius

In a daze of loneliness

Their conversation unfinished

She follows it up with a simile which is drawn from the scene in Iliad Bk 22, where Achilles is pursuing Hector around the walls as a hawk pursues a dove. I can't see a more significant connection than simply that giving Axylus the simile from that famous pursuit of Hector by Achilles raises the death of Axylus, who is mentioned only here, to the status of the death of a hero. A couple of other minor things, but they are touches that really show the subtlety of her understanding of the Greek and her ability to manipulate it: "He who so loved his friends" is a translation of "πάντας γὰρ φιλέεσκεν" - she has translated "φιλέεσκεν" twice, so as to make the point that could be made with a single word in Greek. And "that plump man" translates "ἀφνειὸς βιότοιο", which is perfect. Homer says that none of Axylus' friends were there to stand between him and his doom, which Oswald translates economically as "in a daze of loneliness".

And she's doing this all the time. Everything is as carefully thought out as this small passage. I need to learn a lot more about the rearrangement of traditional material in poets generally. Perhaps I can start with Hellenistic poets. Or Virgil. Because she's doing the same thing they did. Well, maybe not Virgil, who added to his sources from elsewhere, something I haven't caught Oswald doing, yet.

Sunday, 15 April 2012

The death of Acamas

Ajax and Hector exchange gifts, woodcut in Andreas Alciatus, Emblematum libellus, 1591. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Oswald gives the death Acamas the Thracian (beginning of book 6) a few lines, saying Aias 'stopped' him. She then uses the "weaver woman" simile that Homer uses in the battle at the ships (12.432ff).

The original simile is about the battle at the ships being evenly balanced between Trojans and Lycians, the way a weaver woman holds the scales being careful to get the weight exactly right, get (payment for?) the last ounce of wool, to barely support her children; and at the same time, she's holding on against adversity, fighting her own battle against it the way the warriors are fighting with each other, and like them, she is barely holding the line, all but at at a standstill; her wages are pitiful, she is barely eking out a living.

But Oswald focusses instead on the fact that you have to make the scales stop swaying back and forth to weigh something; weighing doesn't occur when the scales are still in motion, but when they stop. So Aias stops Acamas the way the weaver stops weaving, after working all night (as Aias has been fighting all day?), and then stops the scales so they will give an accurate and final reading of her labour.

So the simile is no longer about holding the battle lines even the way the woman holds the scales even. It's about Aias 'stopping' Acamas the way the hard-working woman "stops" spinning and "stops" the scales. The "stop" is the moment of killing; her work as a spinner is made equal to his work as a warrior; she isn't like a god - like Zeus, holding the battle lines even - she's like a soldier, like Aias, fighting against want, and momentarily winning.

Saturday, 14 April 2012

Study Leave: daily notes

Achilles tending Patroclus wounded by an arrow, identified by inscriptions on the upper part of the vase. Tondo of an Attic red-figure kylix, ca. 500 BC. From Vulci. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Iliad VIII 245-253 in codex F205 (Milan, Biblioteca Ambrosiana), late 5th or early 6th c. AD Taken from http://www.lgpn.ox.ac.uk/image_archive/mss/mss2.html (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I think I'm going to start keeping track of the progress I make on whatever the project of the day is. I am done teaching for the term, though I am not done marking for the term heaven knows, but I'm going to spend a little time each day on a research project, by way of easing myself into my summer schedule. And I have a study leave until January, which is such a relief!

So, first up: a paper on Alice Oswald's Memorial. This is in the first instance going to be a conference paper, and I'll see if there's enough in it to publish afterwards. I already think there will be.

Memorial is a re-figuring of the Iliad, a translation that skips the narrative and concentrates only on the death scenes, especially though not exclusively of minor characters, and the similes. The writer did Classics at Oxford and from my reading of her work her Greek is excellent.

My first step is to go through the text and see where she's pulling the scenes from, and compare them to Homer, to see in each instance how her translation compares, what she's doing with the Greek. She is being free with it, in an extremely rooted way. And she is doing the same with the similes, though they are perhaps more direct translations; but she has so far (I'm about 1/3 of the way through) always drawn the simile from a different part of the Iliad than the death scene - so the simile, however apropos, was about someone else in the original. I am trying (at the moment) to figure out how the original informs the choice, and what resonance the original position of the simile (if any) might give to its re-positioning in her poem.

Today I had a look at her bit on Deicoon, who gets 8 lines in the Iliad and 4 short lines in Memorial. Followed by a simile and for the first time I couldn't place where she'd got it from; in the original it either refers to Iris or to the fight at the ships, and I suspect the latter. In both cases it's a Trojan that does or will die. Not sure that matters. The death of Deicoon is followed in the Iliad with a scene in which several people die in short order; perhaps that's what made her choose that simile. Or not. Maybe it just sounded nice.

Must read Terry Eagleton on poetry. There is so very much I'm not getting here.