LECTURE 9 Homer and Indian Poetry.docx

Homer and Indian Poetry Homer and Indian Poetry Lecture 9 Homer’s epics and Vedic poetry form the cornerstones of classical Greek and Greek and Indian civilizations, respectively. As such, it is perhaps not surprising how much these sets of texts have in common: Both were originally part of oral tra...

Homer and Indian Poetry Homer and Indian Poetry Lecture 9 Homer’s epics and Vedic poetry form the cornerstones of classical Greek and Greek and Indian civilizations, respectively. As such, it is perhaps not surprising how much these sets of texts have in common: Both were originally part of oral traditions that looked back to a bygone golden age. Both were concerned with military matters and the acts of gods and heroes. But there are important differences between these bodies of work; most importantly, while Homer’s poems touch on ethics, only the Vedas are considered scripture. Poetry at the Heart of Two Cultures •  Archaeologists have found 1,596 different works of ancient literature preserved on papyri in Egypt. Over half of these are copies of Homer, translations of Homer, or commentaries about Homer’s works. To put this in a modern perspective, imagine if half the books in your local library were by or about just one author. •  There is nothing in our culture that compares to the signifi cance of Homer for the Greeks, not even the Bible or Shakespeare. In Greece, education itself consisted primarily of memorizing and discussing Homer. •  In ancient India, the Vedas and epics occupied a similarly central role. One could argue that they were even more important since the Vedas are also sacred texts. •  There are a number of surprisingly specifi c similarities between the societies and cosmologies outlined in these works. These are probably not because one set of epics directly infl uenced the other but rather an example of two societies going though analogous stages of development. 60 Lecture 9: Homer and Indian Poetry The Development of the Greek Epics •  During the Greek Dark Ages, about the only people who traveled were wandering storytellers. Their tales were not written down. These poets knew the basic outlines of their stories and would improvise their performances by combining stock phrases with new material. •  These epics were not set in the time they were composed but in the Mycenaean era. People knew very little about what had come before them, and the Mycenaean era had taken on the aura of a glorious, heroic age; the people of that time had turned into mythical, largerthan-life fi gures. •  Some of these oral epics were written down after the rediscovery of writing around 750 B.C. The two most important were the Iliad and the Odyssey, which are traditionally ascribed to a poet named Homer. Whether Homer was a real individual or a composite of different storytellers is debated. •  Homer’s poems are a mixture of historical memories and myths, fl eshed out with contemporary details. For example, Homer knew that the Mycenaeans used chariots in warfare, but these were no longer in use at his time, so he did not understand how. In the Iliad, the warriors mostly use chariots as taxis to travel to the battlefi eld, after which they jump out and fi ght on foot. Homer, the purported author of the Illiad and the Odyssey. © Photos.com/© Getty Images/Thinkstock. 61 •  Between the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Iliad was the more important poem to the Greeks, the cornerstone of their literature and culture. Set during a great war in which all the Greek city-states joined to attack the city of Troy, it may be based on a historical confl ict that took place around 1200 B.C. •  While today we focus on Homer’s complex characterizations or the moral questions his works explore, the Iliad is fi rst and foremost a war poem. Long stretches of the text are devoted to describing battles in graphic detail. •  The Iliad also provides a lot of information about Greek religion. The gods are not morally superior to humans. They are neither omnipotent nor omniscient, and they possess all the same emotions and behaviors, good and bad, as humans. •  The Iliad offers models for how to interact with the gods. The Greek gods intervene in mortal affairs. They manipulate events, causing weapons to hit or miss their targets and saving favored humans from certain death. They impersonate humans and even engage in battles. Comparing Homer and the Vedas •  The Vedas and epics such as the Mahabharata, like the Iliad and the Odyssey, were originally composed orally and written down centuries later. Like the Greek epics, they were also set in an earlier, glorifi ed, heroic age. •  The Mahabharata, like the Iliad, also tells the story of a great war between two powerful factions. In it, the Indian gods infl uence events both through advising characters and by direct intervention. The gods disguised themselves as mortals or even animals and had favorites among the humans. 62 Lecture 9: Homer and Indian Poetry •  Both the Iliad and the Indian epics describe societies organized into smallish tribal kingdoms in which warlords and their retinues vie with one another for supremacy and status. These are maledominated societies; women hold subordinate legal and social status. •  Male status is gained and maintained through warfare, carried out with swords, spears, bows, shields, and chariots—although the Indian heroes also employ war elephants. Much of the fi ghting centers around besieging and capturing fortifi ed towns. Just as the Trojan War may preserve the memory of a real siege during the Mycenaean era, the Indian epics may refl ect real events during the Aryan migrations into India. •  In both epic traditions, squabbles over real or perceived insults and longstanding family feuds motivate much of the action. Another common plot device is that the heroes frequently compete in feats of strength and skill in order to assert their dominance or to gain prizes, often a coveted woman to marry. •  Just as the Iliad is fundamentally a war poem, so too the dramatic centerpiece of the Mahabharata is the cataclysmic 18-day battle known as the Kurukshetra War. Both works contain dramatic descriptions of the fi ghting, but the Indian epics tend to be a bit more poetic, and the Iliad more gritty and realistic. •  Another aspect of war emphasized by both poems is the berserker frenzy that can sometimes take over a warrior. Achilles’s growing rage, which peaks with the death of Patroclus, forms the central plot of the Iliad. In the Mahabharata, a warrior named Bhima is consumed with a desire to avenge an insult to his wife committed by the enemy prince Dushasana. •  Achilles’s and Bhima’s respective rages lead both men to acts that even their compatriots regard as beyond what is acceptable, even in a time of war. Achilles slaughters 12 innocent Trojan youths and mutilates the Trojan prince Hector’s corpse; Bhima drinks the blood of the defeated prince Dushasana. 63 Where Homer and the Vedic Epics Diverge •  While many interesting parallels can be drawn between these Greek and Indian epic poems, there are also signifi cant differences. One is simply the scale and range of subject matter. •  The Mahabharata is roughly 20 times longer than the Iliad. The Greek poems are fairly narrowly focused in content and tell cohesive narratives, while the Indian poems are sprawling epics that alternate storytelling with long stretches of religious instruction and prayers. •  Many of the Indian poems, such as the Rig Veda, are exclusively concerned with issues of spirituality and with discussions of theology. The Iliad does contain portraits of the gods and descriptions of Greek religious rituals, but there is little or no concern for spirituality. Homer’s epics simply do not have the status of sacred text. •  Whatever their religious signifi cance, there is no doubt that the epic poems of Greece and India were transformational within their respective parts of the ancient world, and even today, these works continue to inspire and be read by millions of people who look to them both for entertainment and for enlightenment.