Ebook: Achilles and Hector: The Homeric Hero

The original publication of this work was from the St. John's Review, in two parts, in 1985.

Examines the theme of heroism in Homer, focusing on the Iliad. Examines the relationships between the poem's smallest parts and its largest themes. The book is divided into two sections. The first section looks at how the small components of the Iliad, the epithets and similes, work together meaningfully to inform the larger heroic themes of the epic. The second section examines Homer's view of the tragic hero through an analysis of the plot. The author's 1955 doctoral dissertation in social thought for the University of Chicago was published in two parts in the St. John's Review in the spring and summer of 1985. The parts do not take the opposing hero's of Homer's Iliad in turn, as might be expected, but discuss first the style and then the plot.