The Poetics of Consent ─ Collective Decision Making and the Iliad

Elmer (classics, Harvard U.) examines collective decision making in the Iliad and the power given to collective will in the context of deliberation, arguing that the Iliad's representation of politics is primarily a reflection of the diachronic shaping of the poem through a continuous process of reception. He draws on the text of the poem, particularly repeated words and phrases and instances of the key verb epainein to illustrate his interpretation. He examines formulaic conventions that govern scenes of consensus and their use in specific scenes, including formulas for describing the responses of audiences in deliberative settings, the etymology of the verb epainein and its relationship to the complex of Indo-European ideas concerning verbal behavior and social order, and how the Iliad makes collective decision making a key issue. He considers the development of themes in the poem in terms of its three political communities--the Achaeans, the Trojans, and the Olympian gods--the ways the consensus motif illustrates real-world reception, and evidence indicating that some ancient readers saw the treatment of consensus as an expression of the nexus between the Iliadic tradition and its community of reception, ending with comparisons to the Odyssey. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

David F. Elmer is an associate professor of the classics at Harvard University.