Immortality in Cavafy's Poems

 While reading C.P. Cavafy's poems about The Iliad for class I began to notice a particular theme in all of them. That theme was immortality. In some of Cavafy's poems the idea of immortality was more prominent than in others but, nonetheless, it is present. For example, the poem entitled "The Horses of Achilles" directly references the immortality of the horses. Zeus feels sorry for the immortal horses because, in a way, they are forced to experience mortality first-hand in witnessing Patroclus' death. In "Interruption", Cavafy clearly indicates the differences between the immortals and mortals. Peleus and Metaneira both interrupt a goddess while she is in the process of turning their child into an immortal. In this way he makes a point as to how clueless mortals are about immortals and how we, inevitably bring about our own mortality. However, in the poem "The Funeral of Sarpedon" the theme is a little subtler. When preparing Sarpedon's body for his funeral Apollo "pours perfume of ambrosia over it, and dresses it in Olympian robes". In other words, it seems as if Apollo has dressed Sarpedon as an immortal would be. This demonstrates the immortality of heroes after their deaths in the stories that are written and told about them. Finally, the most abstract mention of immortality exists in the poem "Trojans". In this poem Cavafy compares the Trojans to "us" which refers to the audience whether that is the Greeks or simply anyone who reads the poem. Regardless of who the "us" is in the poem the reference to immortality still remains. Cavafy's comparison claims that "our efforts are like those of the Trojans" which suggests that we are the Trojans. In this sense the Trojans are immortal because we are they. Even if we are simply like them, we continue to carry on their legacy. We, in our actions, have immortalized the Trojans.
Originally, I considered all of these poems very separate from each other. After establishing this connection through the theme of immortality, however, I begin to question if this wasn't done on purpose. Perhaps there is a specific reason why each of these poems references immortality.

Epic or Elegy?

In my Anglo-Saxons history class that I have before this class we are discussing the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf. Something that we were discussing today really made me consider a similar question with regards to The Iliad. We were attempting to determine whether or not Beowulf was in fact an epic or if it was, in fact, and elegy. We didn't quite come up with a response but I began wondering if you could ask the same thing of The Iliad. Yes, The Iliad is the definition of an epic. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) proves this when it describes an epic as "Pertaining to that species of poetical composition, represented typically by the Iliad and Odyssey, which celebrates in the form of a continuous narrative the achievements of one or more heroic personages of history or tradition." My question, however, is can you consider The Iliad as an elegy as well? Does it fit both of these categories? In my opinion, I'd have to say yes. Going back to the OED we can define an elegy as "A song or poem of lamentation, esp. for the dead; a memorial poem." This definition further enforces the idea that this poem is in fact an elegy of sorts as well as an epic. If Alice Oswald believes that she captured the essence of The Iliad in her Memorial than it seems that this proves that it is in fact an elegy. After all, and elegy is "a memorial poem". The next question this raises is how can these two different genres fit together? In our Anglo-Saxons class we read an article by J.R.R. Tolkien in which Tolkien seems to argue that Beowulf is a "heroic elegy". I believe we can apply this same type of spliced-genre to The Iliad as well. It is an epic which tells the story of heroes but it also elegiacally mourns the deaths of everyone at Troy. 

War of the Homefront

In the poem "The Shield of Achilles" by W.H. Auden, Auden describes a very different shield than the one Hephaestus makes for Achilles in The Iliad. This new, modern version seems to be directly influenced by the events of the era in which this poem was written--directly after the second World War. In particular, it is very clear that one major difference from the shield of The Iliad is the absence in Auden's poem of scenes of peace. In the poem, Thetis searches for the images of "athletes at their games, men and women in a dance" amongst other peaceful activities. Instead she finds images of "a ragged urchin", "girls are raped", "two boys knife a third", and many other similarly depressing, violent images. I think this change from The Iliad is directly related to the simple fact that there weren't a lot of places that were not affected by World War II. Especially in England which is where Auden is from. Before "The Blitz" on London during the war, England had not experienced a threat to England itself from a foreign power since the Norman invasion in 1066. England had always been the Greeks from The Iliad. The English always travelled to other places to "sack cities" in a sense. They never fought a war against a foreign power at home. In this poem we clearly see the effect that this has. In some ways it suggests that some might have thought that England's strength was weakening and this scared them. Very similarly to how scared Agamemnon and the other Greek leaders became when Hector was so close to burning their ships or how scared the Trojans became when they realized how close the Greeks were to taking Troy.

Themes of Death in The Twelfth Day

I found Rosanna Warren’s “The Twelfth Day” to be an intriguing and powerful poem. I was particularly struck by her ability to capture integral elements of the Iliad’s exploration of death in such concise and punchy verse.

Consider, for example, that Hector’s face “vaulting / through gravel and blood / blends strangely / with the features / of that other / one: the Beloved”. This may be interpreted in two ways, with both interpretations yielding an interesting reflection of ideas expressed in Homer’s poem. On the first interpretation, Patroclus is the beloved in question (i.e. the beloved of Achilles). Thus, Hector’s body is shown resemble Patroclus’, conveying the Iliadic notion that death does not discriminate, but rather is all-encompassing in war. In death these two men are the same, and by extension they demonstrate that death treats equally Greeks and Trojans, victors and victims, etc.

For the second interpretation, we might consider Achilles to be the beloved in question. This way of reading the verse is founded on his status (seeing as he was the younger man) as the beloved in a potential erastes/eromenos relationship with Patroclus. On this reading, Hector’s features resemble Achilles’, reinforcing the notion that Achilles dies in some strong sense after Patroclus is slain. This theme of Achilles’ deathlike state is expressed at other points in Warren’s poem as well, such as the line “rigor / mortis in the / mortal grip”. 

Missing Themes in "Memorial"

Alice Oswald's Memorial is a very unique interpretation of The Iliad that focuses on the deaths of the majority of the characters. It's supposed to mimic a memorial service/funeral for the fallen soldiers, regardless of side or loyalty, and honor their deaths. Apparently, this version of The Iliad was supposed to encompass and condense the entire atmosphere of the epic. I don't think that Oswald's version does this because she leaves out one major theme. Rage is hardly mentioned at all in Memorial. There might be a few references to it in a simile or when mentioning a couple deaths but it is not at all proportionally represented as much in Memorial as it is in The Iliad. By my count, the word 'rage' or one of it's synonyms appears 88 times by the end of book 10. Not even half-way through The Iliad and rage has already been referenced 88 times, yet it's mentioned only once or twice in Memorial. How is it possible that Oswald provides an accurate overview of the atmosphere of The Iliad as a whole when she excludes one of the most important themes in the entire epic? I think her exclusion of the theme of rage is a clear oversight in her depiction of The Iliad.

What Might We Call the Opposite of Divine Intervention?

Of the four C.P. Cavafy poems that we read, “Interruption” struck me as the most puzzling and thereby most thought-provoking. The other poems seem to reflect themes and/or scenes from the Iliad with a certain measure of fidelity; yes, as adaptions they do not match up exactly with the source text, but their connection to Homer’s poem is clear. “Interruption”, on the other hand, appears to present a theme that is in opposition to its parallel formulation in the Iliad.

In the Iliad, we are familiar with instances of divine intervention of varying degrees of blatancy. Athena swatting away arrows from Menelaus’ body might be construed as merely the psychological characterization of luck; Apollo breaking Patroclus’ armor, not so much. Regardless, we are presented only with the notion of gods interfering in the affairs of mortals – intervention is a one-way causal bridge in which deities may influence outcomes in the human realm.

Cavafy’s poem, however, presents an inverted relationship of intervention. In the lines of his work, it is “we who interrupt the action of the gods”; it is the mortals Metaneira and Peleus who intervene in the affairs of Demeter and Thetis, not the other way around. Thus, we are left with a type of interventional relationship that we don’t even have a name for – perhaps simply mortal intervention? How boring. Nevertheless, it is interesting to consider why it might be that Cavafy decides to present us “hasty and awkward creatures of the moment” as having interventional power over the gods, a conception that is in direct opposition with the divine intervention paradigm of the Iliad.

Honestly I can do little more than raise this point as a potential topic for discussion. “Interruption” is so puzzling to me that I haven’t been able to develop a workable thesis. 

Interpreting Weil's The Iliad, or the Poem of Force (part two)

The more complicated issue that I must reconcile in order to support my claim is Weil’s apparent disregard for the Iliad’s focus on kleos and war-glory. In all of her discussion of the devastating effects of force on the participants of war in the Iliad, Weil never mentions that one of the major themes of the poem is achieving kleos – and thus a form of enviable immortality – through excellence in battle. While it is true that Weil avoids touching this topic explicitly, I believe that an implicit treatment of the issue may be teased out of her essay.

Consider her statement that “if the existence of an enemy has made a soul destroy in itself the thing that nature put there, then the only remedy the soul can imagine is the destruction of the enemy” (pg. 24, my edition). This quote illustrates that soldiers in war are faced with the destruction of their souls (i.e. loss of subjectivity) due to their employment of the force-that-kills and by their psychological submission to the force-that-can-kill expressed in the form of the enemy. Faced with one’s destruction (i.e. transformation into an object), the only solution for maintaining subjectivity is the destruction of the enemy.

I believe that this claim parallels the presentation of war in the Iliad, and thus provides the grounds for explaining Weil’s implicit treatment of kleos. When we discussed whether the Iliad was pro- or anti- war, we concluded that it couldn’t be anti-war in the sense of a call for pacifism; war is presented as an inevitable symptom of the human condition. Thus, in the Iliad and in Weil’s essay, warriors must inevitably conclude that destroying the enemy is the only solution available for maintaining the integrity of their agency. Thus, kleos is implicitly accounted for: one must kill one’s enemies in order to prevent oneself from being consumed by the power of force. Excellence in this regard is praised as a form of war-glory; those who achieve kleos are remembered and admired for their ability to maintain their subjectivity in the face of all-enslaving force.

My treatment of the issues here is not conclusive by any means, but I hope to have at least provoked some thought as to how Weil’s essay might be better reconciled with its source text. 

Interpreting Weil's The Iliad, or the Poem of Force (part one)

I find Simone Weil’s essay on the Iliad very interesting, and would thus like to examine my interpretation of her work in a bit more detail. Some of what follows has already been said in class, but I hope to also point to some ideas that go beyond our classroom discussion.

I agree with two important points brought up last Thursday. The first is that Weil’s essay is undeniably an interesting philosophical work; a work that presents powerful and plausible theories about the nature of war and human suffering. The second point is that, despite its philosophical value, her essay fails to do the Iliad justice in the realm of literary interpretation. In other words, she fails to properly take the Iliad as a whole into consideration, neglecting how certain themes (particularly kleos) are represented in the poem itself. Furthermore, Weil seems to import modern Western ideologies, particularly Christianity, into Homer’s work, as can be seen with her problematic usage of the vocabulary of grace, halos, souls, and chastity, as well as her discussion of the Gospels. Despite this being the case, however, I would like to claim that Weil’s interpretation, if provided with supplementary argumentation, actually does less violence to the Iliad than we seem to have believed in class.

To begin with the less difficult case of Weil’s Christian vocabulary, we might give her a more charitable reading by conceding that these terms do not necessarily have to be understood as adhering to their meaning in Christian dogma. To elucidate: Weil’s use of “soul” does not necessarily have to be interpreted as some immortal, metaphysical entity that constitutes our eternal being. It may be interpreted, rather, to mean something more akin to self or subjective consciousness. This gets around the problem that heroes in the Iliad never talk about their souls – while it is true that this is the case, Homeric heroes certainly seem to have a sense of self that is pointed to in their speech. Such a use of “soul” is not without precedent, as philosophers operating in earlier centuries (and thus steeped in the Christian vocabulary) have used “soul” to mean similar things. We could, in theory, do similar interpretive work with Weil’s other uses of Christian terminology, and thus unproblematize them for the interpretation of the Iliad. Her explicit discussion of the Gospels is more difficult to contend with, but this is perhaps less damning for our present purposes. (Continued in part two). 

On Hating Helen

            From my contributions in class, it is pretty clear that I resent the character of Helen. I would like to start by warranting the fact that I do believe she is an ambiguous character. It is hard to tell if she followed Paris to Troy because she was forced, or if it was by free will. However, my dislike for Helen has little to do with this ambiguity, or even the fact that she is central to the war. After all, although she is central to why the war has begun, after nine years the war has become about more than Helen, it has become about gaining kleos, and about destroying or defending a city.  The reason I detest Helen is because I believe she, unlike any other character is the book, has less to lose.

            This is especially apparent in Book 24 when she laments Hector. She speaks about no longer having a friend since Hector has died; however this is misleading. Whether or not she has a “friend” afterwards is hard to prove, but what isn’t hard to prove is that no matter how this war ends, she has somewhere to go. If the Greeks win, she has a home with Menelaus. If the Trojans win, she has a home with Paris. And of course from the Odyssey, we can confirm that she does get to go home with her original husband, Menelaus. Trojans are fighting for their home, for their families, for their lives. Both sides are losing friends and family members; some soldiers will never go home again. Helen may lose some of the people around her, but she ultimately has another home, another place to go. She also never suffers fully with one side. Helen doesn’t lose her husband or children to war, nor does she have to suffer kidnap and rape that the Trojan women will eventually suffer. Helen lives.

            I will not refuse to acknowledge the fact that Helen does not have a choice in this matter, and that because she has these two homes, in some ways it may seem she has more to lose. However, while reading the Iliad, it was overwhelmingly frustrating knowing that many soldiers were dying because of her and were losing their home because of her. These soldiers only had one home, one life, and one family. Yet no matter how fate decided things ended, Helen had a way out. She was never fully losing a home or a family, and no matter which way the scales of war settled, she had a home and a family to fall back on.

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