Date: Wed, 2 Aug 1995 10:01:22 -0400
From: afn02065-AT-freenet.ufl.edu (Matt D.)
Subject: Re: Cox, Rogers, Odysseus & Procrustus


>Cox, Rogers, Odysseus and Procrustus
>
>The Iliad reflects a patriarchal society (the sacrifice of Iphigenia, female
>chattel, Helen, Breseis, Priam's 50 wives, idealization of the martial
>ethos, idealization
>of male homoeroticism, ....).  In contrast the Odyssey reflects a
>bourgeois society,
>the idealization of the trickster, cunning, wilyness ...and sophist's
>verbal skills and the
>sophistical employment of the Logos; a domestic society centered around
>the nest
>with its faithful wife, child, dog, and old servants, for which Odysseus is
>homesick (not exactly virile motivation)...a matriarchy.

Eh?

>This is deja vu for me.  I remember raising this same contrast 30 years ago.
>The fallacy resides in the confounding of discrete vestigial forms with the
>informing ethos...as in, today's suburbanite sunday churchgoer does not
>signify a "believer,"  for all the monographs that tell us how extraordinarily
>religious an industrialized society we are.

Well, just goes to show how inaccurate my impressions can be.  I thought
you were maybe 19.

-- Matt D.




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