Georgetown University School of Continuing Studies/ The Neoliberal Corporation
Doctor of Liberal Studies Foundation 1
Essay Paper: The Development of Power, Privilege, Position and Status Within the Foundations of Historical literature.
An Introduction to the Concept Paper Entitled: Do the Poems of Homer and Hesiod’s Theogony and the Biblical Stories provide a Basis to Begin to Understand the Problem and Consequences of Human Dynamics in the Development of Human Society?
By: Renaldo C. McKenzie, M.Phil., M.A., Doctor of Liberal Studies Candidate
Edited by: Professor Ori Soltes, Georgetown University
Published by The Neoliberal Corporation
Date: October 8, 2021
The Iliad is said to be an epic composed probably in the late eight or early seventh century B.C. by Homer,[1] whose life and or reality is still a mystery. Written with some type of Greek identity, the Iliad utilizes “lines of hexameter,” [2] for entertainment or imagination. All we have is the tradition, what the Greeks of historical times believed they know about Homer.[3] There are those who question whether Homer was even Greek such as Joseph Ben Matthias who asserted that he was Jew because the Greeks did not learn to write until very late in their history; and The Trojan war was ignorant of present-day mode of writing, for Homer’s
songs were transmitted by memory and not unified until much later.[4] Moreover, Hesiod’s Theogony is also met with scrutiny: In Hesiod’s case we also have to concern ourselves with the question of influence from the civilizations of the Near East, which had older, elaborate creation myths of their own.[5] Although the Theogony is our earliest surviving account of the origins of the gods from the Greek world, it must always be remembered that there were other contemporary accounts, but it is not possible to say that it represents “what the Greeks believed” or even “what the Greeks of Hesiod’s time believed.”[6]
Further, there are those who would admit that earlier Greeks were concerned with Future Greek actions so that their stories were aimed at creating a “legendary Greece” For the Iliad had a different name in German traditions – “Urlias” – and appeared earlier than Homer’s Iliad.[7] In fact, it is said that earlier Greeks did not put much credence into the stories of Homer and Hesiod until later,[8] thereby underscoring Kant’s assertion that history is for the future and its philosophy and methods are purely based in human nature and circumstance.[9] Thereby, resulting into what we have today, one Greek history that parallels the Germans which is different due to nature and circumstance — which I propose is that drive to promote a particular identity for a people. In fact, in the Sappho/Pindar fragments in 630-580 BCE we are told: “Some say a host of Calvary, others of infantry, still others of ships is the most beautiful thing on the black earth-but I say it is whomsoever one loves…. By implication this may be seen to suggest that to write about those one loves is more worthwhile than to write about war.”[10] Essentially, in Sappho/Pindar we see the early beginnings of this Kantian observation that human history is based on human nature and circumstance. This leads me to hypothesize that in times past men such as Homer, Hesiod and early Greek men in one epoch or time period valorize war and wrote glowingly of war. But then the matter or theme turns from war to love. Homer’s Iliad is one of war. The New Testament Bible speaks of the Hero of Love where Christ willingly/heroically dies to save those whom he loves as against Achilles in the Iliad who heroically dies fighting. Nature and human circumstances in various periods turn poems and tales from war to love depending on what the goal is for humanity in a particular period in time based on their position and place in society/life.
In fact, it is said that ”The ancient poet plays with his cards on the table; the modern dramatist conceals his hand….but he does it in such a way that the imagination is quickened to create for itself.”[11] In effect, the tales of Homer and Hesiod and the few that is known or written or discovered are already known by an “inner circle” of Greek/scholars. The reader was always one of the “inner circle,”[12] so that Homer artistically and poetically imposed an epic upon the known so as to produce his Iliad and Hesiod’s Theogony. Which leads me to assert that such works are their imaginative work on a monotonous story. A story that is reimagined and reinterpreted with their epic and later men have themselves reimagined and reinterpreted to produce what we have today as Greek myths.
But, what was life like then that it needed epics. [13] I do not pretend to be a Greek Scholar, as I do not profess to be a part of any “inner circle”, as I am limited by time and space and can only rely on assumptions about the past driven by facts that aren’t themselves unique to a particular time.[14] But as I seek to understand “Power” in its shape and form and neoliberalism as a representation of that in my dissertation, I have come to find tremendous value and interest in exploring the foundations of Greek exceptionalism and its connections with power, privilege, and position in society and how these takes shape throughout various epochs and periods in human history to the present.
It then leads me to ask, is history and its products (poems, art, artifacts, traditions and archives) a true representation of the past given limitations of time, space and geography; and human nature to privilege, possess and to continue a particular position of power and exclusion? With all the problems of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Hesiod’s Theogony, and the Genesis Stories concerning the Sacred and the Profane regarding revelation, interpretation, transmission, meanings, symbolisms, human nature and circumstances—one must ask, is history universal or limited to a particular people, place and nationalists? I’m here exploring whether we can have a history that is universal or one that is national or
particular to the times without drawing universal conclusions about all things sacred and profane. If historical things such as Homer’s Poems and Hesiod’s Theogony are more credible in the future than in the past, what guideposts can they provide and what
reverence can we put in them? For if the past approaches it’s present with scant regard, how then can we trust what we have now?
Moreover, on the matter of Greek epics and its use of irony; it is said by Aristotle et al that Homer in both of his epics made wide use of irony.[15] Similar to Socratic Irony it has a known element within its composition as it is known by the Greeks or an “Innercircle” who are only able to decode and detect its truer meanings or is it an imaginative sensational piece of epic. So the Question is, if it is for the clever where one must decode and detect and relies on ones smart – then history becomes one of selection – for the select few – creating or supporting this dualism or hegemony or privilege status and hierarchy in society. Therefore, we may also need to begin there to study this development of privilege and status. According to J. A K Thompson, “the delight that irony gives to the “inner circle” is based on the secret intimacy which exists between Homer and themselves… It aims rather at exclusiveness… Its purpose is to set up a bond between the one who employs it and those who are clever enough to detect it.”[16] This provides an interesting basis as I formulate a study of power. In the foundation of all things or somethings we me see power, privilege and position so that such an attempt to study power would include tracing its ideology in a peoples’ understanding of the sacred throughout history, from earliest to latest.[i]
Moreover, we speak emphatically about Greek Chauvinism in Greek literature, but who is to determine this chauvinism? Homer stated that the Trojans looses because they are undisciplined unlike the Archaean’s. He makes a parallel/comparison that promotes the sentiments of the Greeks, that privileges this Greek exceptionalism in a time of war. Can we conclude from this that these poems are war books written in a time of war to motivate inspire and encourage the Greeks to join the war and to justify the war? Further, as we look at various cultures and traditions that dominate, we see a pattern of this war literature that promotes war and their exceptionalism. From Samaria to Mesopotamia, Persians to Greeks, Hittites and the Romans within the Greco-Roam World, all within their various nations and places and periods have poems and literature that position themselves as better or promote a national idea of God that is not necessarily a contradiction but a parallel.
Further, humans have these tendencies to promote these caricatures of themselves using imagery. As in the story of Superman and James Bond, Toy story and Bunny Rabbit promotes this is US-UK power over the other who happen to be the soviets or Russia or East Germany. When we delve into Orientalism and Occidentalism, we will explore in more detail this line of argument and attempt to provide an answer to these questions. But to conclude, this first episode, we have advanced the assertion that peoples at various times based on their position and goals in history have interpreted or reinterpreted revelations if they are revelations at all or mere human dreams or ideas. The Hebrews approach the sacred with their Genesis, and the Romans had their Christianity as against the Greeks and their Zeus and the Eastern men who looked to the Buddha or Germans with their Urlias and Norse religion. Nevertheless, we see a common thread, a populist/nationalist ideology in the development of the sacred and profane, where peoples at various times profess a unique idea of the sacred based on their position in history and their geography at some point in time.
[1] See Robert Flagles, “Homer, The Iliad,” 1991, pp. 3-11.
[2] Ibid, p. 12.
[3] Herodotus believed that he lived for four hundred years before his time sometime around the ninth century, while Aristarchus of Alexandria puts him around 140 years after the Trojan war (which was dated around 1200 B.C.) See Robert Fagles, “Homer, The Iliad,” 1991, p. 7
[4] Ibid, pp. 7-8
[5] To what degree these influences had been incorporated into Greek mythical thought before Hesiod is difficult to determine, but there is no doubt that many of the features that stand out in the Theogony derive from or are parallel to myths from the Near East. (see “Hesiod Theogony” Fragments Handout accessed via Files on Canvass p.129)
[6] Ibid, pp. 129-130
[7] See Robert Fagles, “Homer, The Iliad,” 1991, p. 10
[8] Professor Ori Soltes at a DLS Foundation Class Lecture on September 2021 at Georgetown University
[9] See Lewis White Beck’s “Kant On History,” 2001.
[10] Sappho, CA 630-580 BCE Fragments.
[11] See J. A. Symonds, “Studies of the Greek Poet,” 1877, p. 302
[12] See H. W. Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage, 1926, 9. 241
[13] “The Greek poet, did not expect his audience to be completely passive. On the contrary, he expected them to use their own imaginations and intellectual power” (See Aristotle, “Poetics,” 1448b.) This begs the question: was homer being imaginative since the traditions are already known and he’s retelling stores that is common. Was life that boring? Or is he writing to color the stories or is he promoting a war book to detect Greek legend and exceptionalism?
[14] And as Descartes suggest, we can’t really know anything beyond your own thinking or mind for one’s essence of truth is only evident within one’s self. Cogito ergo sum. “I think…, therefore I am.” Essentially then, we are only making either good or bad assumptions.
[15] According to Homeric scholars, In the Iliad the irony pervades the whole poem from the beginning to the very end. (See Sedgewick, p. 50) The irony of Homer’s poem because of the nature of its plot, is for the most part irony of action and irony of fate. According to J. A Symonds, “Achilles is the supreme achievement of the ironic method in Homer…. Without the abundant use of irony much of the grandeur of his character could never have been revealed to us…. Since the Odyssey is a story of character, its irony for the most part is tragic irony of the purest type… Its constant use in The Tragedy of the Suitors greatly adds to the suspense of the poem, and sustains our interest in the fast-moving narrative. In the character of Penelope, irony reveals many lovely facets of her personality that would otherwise have passed unnoticed” (See J. A. Symonds, “Studies of the Greek Poets,” 1877, Ch. 3).
[16] (See J. A. K. Thompson, “Irony,” 1927.) Shall we then explore this kind of intellectualism, that Gramsci in his “Prison Notebooks,” eschews as the beginning of elitism, and there’s a period when only those who spoke and read Latin were able to read the Christian Bible as it was written in Latin a language spoken only by the few which paved the way for privilege and status? Probably such poems belong to a period of war marked by War. And it is in this war that we see the development of irony as a way to promote Greek exceptionalism and chauvinism. In essence I’m purporting Irony as a wartime strategy in the Bronze Age – where the Greeks or the inner circle are only able to decode and detect its meanings — as developed in wartime (Bronze Age).
[i] End Notes:
- The problem however remains for us: How do we know that the poems are what they symbolize and mean? Are symbols and meanings the same in Hesiod and homers time and the period they are writing about? Are those symbols and meanings also taken to mean the same thing? We use Greek Culture for Greek literature and their comparative parallels. But Culture in one era is not always the same. Yet it is believed that the Greeks had precise and exact ways of writing so that any Greek would not understand. Nevertheless, if Homer employs a Sophoclean irony that relies on the audience clever and ability to detect and create, would it not be one that’s pre-Sophoclean that is unfinished and unclear. For how developed was literary writing and speaking, and did the Greeks employ irony in the way we now think of ironies? And if ironies provide an opposing understanding for emphasis, what emphasis do we come away with and is it unifying? How can we understand the poem as intended by homer if symbols and meanings are ironic or duplicitous? Unless the meanings are already understood by those who are smart. Is Homeric poems for a particular group of Greeks, the wise or clever. Since the irony he uses according to scholars are duplicitous and the stories are already known by Greeks but what Greeks since as he writes he uses an irony that is understood but can only be done through clever detection as if a code. And if in times of war as a war strategy then is it using that so that only Greeks can understand so that he uses Greek devices.
- And if he is claiming to be inspired by Gods (muses) is this inspiration verbatim? Did he write as the muses shared as in the biblical claim by biblical scholars? In the Iliad, Homer writes “Sing to me Muses…” Is he here suggesting that he was inspired by the Muses or is it only inferred from this epic and imaginative piece. For if it is imaginative, can we also assume that the Muses he speaks of are imaginative? So then there is either no tragic irony but one that is serious. And if ironic is this irony Godsend since he is inspired to write these poems by the muses. Yet there is still the issue of parallels between cultures and traditions in the stories of the sacred so that we ask if homer had other influences from other traditions which begs the question are the irony purely Grecian or Homeric or if other influences. Yet we speak of Homeric irony without considering the borrowed irony. And if the meanings are contained in the ironies and they have an unintended meaning than what is expressed then this defies the purpose of revelation to make clear the realm of the sacred since as people of the profane we may understand and come to know what is. Why would such traditions promote poems that defy meanings or make the sacred even more complex a thing to understand and that is relevant to a particular audience so that there is confusion or a myriad of positions. If one must be clever then this only creates a position of privilege and hierarchy where some possess, the actual and intended knowledge of the sacred while others not so clever or smart have the unintended meaning so that society consists of those with the true knowledge and those without so that the few will now lead the many. It’s a strategy steeped in the realization of power and privilege, which is picked up and carried throughout Grecian history and the Greco-Roman world to the present so that even Plato creates in his Republic a society of class.
- And can we however conclude that the poems provide more questions than answers. Are the answers found in the questions themselves and is it a starting point to begin to see the unity of the presence or idea of God or power and privilege throughout all of history and in every human society from pre-civilization to now. It provides a basis and some historical insights in the ways people in societies thought of God and experienced god or the sacred. Does it reveal how human nature change overtime? We may only assume intelligently if ever we can.
References and Sources
- Aristotle, Poetics. Translated by James Hutton. W. W. Norton and Company; first edition, 1982.
- Beck, Lewis White. Kant On History. NJ: Prentice Hall, 2001.
- Fowler, H. W. A Dictionary of Modern English Usage. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926.
- “Hesiod’s Theogony,” 8th or 7th BC, composed in Greek. Accessed online via Georgetown University Canvass Files, September 2021.
- Homer, The Iliad. Translated by Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1991.
- Ori Soltes, Professor, at a DLS Foundation Class Lecture at Georgetown University, on September 2021.
- “Sappho Pindar,” CA 630-580 BCE Fragments, Chapter 5. Accessed online via Georgetown University Canvass Files, September 2021.
- Sedgewick, G. G. Of Irony, Especially in Drama. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1935
- Symonds, J. A. Studies of the Greek Poets. London: Smith Elder and Company, 1877.
- Thomas J. A. K. Irony. Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1927.
- Van Hook, L. Greek Life and Thought. New York: Columbia University Press, 1937
This is a section of part of a wider paper and discussion on “Power, Privilege, Position, Status…”
Rev. Renaldo C. McKenzie