HOMERS ILIAD AND SYLVESTER STALLONE

Oral Tradition, 2008

The studies presented here 1 explore an aspect of the dynamism and efficacy of literature so masterfully illuminated by John Foley, especially in Immanent Art: From Structure to Meaning in Traditional Oral Epic (1991). The construction of meaning through structure is at the very foundation of oral or "oral-derived" texts, which rely on the totality of tradition to create precise meaning. All the stories and narratives heard by listeners contribute to the creation of every character, every action, and every narrative motif. My own analyses, along the same lines as Foley's, have led me to recognize that it is possible for real political thought to emerge in as well as by means of the narrative. I am interested in the construction of meaning through structure, not in literature in general, but within a given text. After a dozen or so years spent studying the genre of the epic, it seems to me that epics are precisely the texts in which literature can develop a profound, vital, and irreplaceable meaning not possible anywhere else: a real way of thinking, although without concepts. Of course, in the first place, an epic presents itself as a narrative, or rather a series of narratives. These narratives are so compelling, and so familiar, that we remain fascinated by them and ready to believe with Hegel or Lukacs that they describe a harmonious and stable world. But if we place these texts very precisely in their original context we recognize that the world they describe is a world that is prey to crisis, disorder, and chaos; we may see then that the function of the epic is precisely to allow society as a whole to see, first dimly and then in more detail, a new political order. War is in fact used as a sort of metaphor for the intense political crisis in which Greece finds itself at the end of the Dark Ages and Japan finds itself at the beginning of feudalism. And so the epic will in effect discuss the epoch's disorder while seemingly "only" telling the stories of the warriors. It will make its public aware of a radically new political form that represents the real solution to the crisis facing them. If we focus our attention not on the psychology of the characters or the unfolding of the narrative surface but rather on the structural relationships among these characters as established by the various episodes, that is, if we read these war-stories as a structure, we discern political oppositions as the major stakes. The entire Iliad is primarily the staging of the confrontation of two possible forms of political power: on the one hand the autos (autocratic) government that Agamemnon seeks to impose by taking Achilles' captive, on the other hand a government in which the king is

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication

2007

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. This content downloaded from 132.66.11.212 on Sat, To understand a literary work, we have, in the course of reading, to answer a series of such questions as: What is the represented situation? What is happening, and why? What is the connection between what is taking place at this particular moment and what went before, and how do both relate to what will probably come after? What are the motives and designs of this or that character, and to what extent is he aware of them? How does he view other characters figuring in the same work? It is the set of answers that is given that enables the reader to reconstruct the field of reality is representedin the textto make sense of the fictive world. *Editors' Note: This paper, published in Hebrew in 1968 (Ha-Sifrut 1:2, 263-292),is one of the early essays of the Tel Aviv school of Poetics. It continues earlier work by Menahem Perry and Yoseph Haephrati analyzing Modern Hebrew poetry and fiction which, in turn, was based on Benjamin Hrushovski's ideas of a "unified theory of the literary text." The paper raises the problems of the reader's role in constituting a literary text and the possibility of several contradictory ways of "gap-filling," thus discussing structure not as an objective given but as a base for constructions and what was later to be called "deconstructions" of a text. The organization of the text, however, is seen as the guiding force and the dynamics of the text-continuum is a central consideration. It is part of a systematic poetics developed not as a mere application of linguistics but based on detailed research of literary phenomena. Furthermore, there is a close interdependence between descriptive poetics and the interpretation of texts, while the interpretations serve for the development of a theory of texts, and their cognition. At the same time, this was a new application of general problems of literary theory to the poetics of the Bible. Indeed, parts of the paper have recently been incorporated in Meir Sternberg's book (1985). Another direction of the Tel-Aviv school, beginning with Hrushovski's studies of the 1950s and especially in the work of Itamar Even-Zohar, Gideon Toury, Zohar Shavit and others, developed the theory and study of historical poetics and semiotics of culture, especially historical prosody, theory of translation, theory of poly-systems and ideology in literature and culture. Poetics Today, Vol. 7:2 (1986) 275-322 This content downloaded from 132.66.11.212 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 14:14:27 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 1. For some distinctions and examples in this connection see Menahem Perry (1967). That article uses the term "heading" for what results once the gaps are filled and the elements linked together. The "heading" is a hypothesis through which the elements of a literary work (or segment) are reconciled and fitted together. Its validity increases with the number of elements it can explain or interrelate. The elements themselves attain to their full significance only within the framework of the explanatory "heading." This content downloaded from 132.66.11.212 on Sat, 05 Dec 2015 14:14:27 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE KING THROUGH IRONIC EYES

2019

The aim of the paper is to propose a poetic approach to politics based mostly on Aristotle's Poetics and its understanding tragedy as a mimesis of action (1); mimesis as a mode of mediating important insights into the structure of the reality of politics on an intermediary level of abstraction between the concrete and the abstract (2); and catharsis as a mode of experiencing politics mixing cognitive and affective elements (3). Besides discussing Aristotle's basic concepts the paper shortly examines the role of tragic theater within Athenian democracy and stresses that attending dramatic competitions was more than just a religious or sport-like activity in the life of the citizens of a democratic political community, but it served as a way of ritually relive actual political experiences and a way of civic education. Drawing on these lessons, the paper argues that a political poetics based on these ancient Athenian experiences could have two advantages for discourse theory: on the one hand, it offers a normative democratic theory of discourses and, on the other hand, it offers an inspiring model of discourse in which action, cognition, affection, individual and collective experiences are connected by the medium of fiction. The last part of the paper will seek to show how this poetical approach can deepen our understanding of individual and collective political engagements (from Facebook posting to participating in mass protest events on to other forms of political activism) and can help us to deal with some of the troubling challenges of the post-truth politics.

Images. The International Journal of European Film, Performing Arts and Audiovisual Communication, 2015

My MA Thesis charts Homer’s Iliad as a song of thumoresistance. I mean the very intersection of thumos and stasis. Thumos means heart, spirit, rage, bravery and is understood to be the courageous part of the Ancient Greek psyche. Stasis implies civil strife—a radical rupture with the organization of political power—an event which needs to occur for structural changes to manifest. Stasis, as contestation and conflict is politics as such. I have deeper interests in producing a strong, albeit polemic, argument that affirms and extenuates Ancient forms of rage, dissent and courageous action. It is in the points of resonance between Menis, Thumos and Stasis, that I locate brave, courageous and enraged modes that engage and produce political crises. I am examining liberatory, revolutionary acts of thumotic resistance/stasis (individual/heroic and collective rage), as essential parts of Ancient Greek life. Affirming menis, thumos and stasis, as I feel the need to do, will strengthen critique Plato for being anti-democratic, anti-collective decision-making, against the capacity for courageous and spited action, and against political rage and politics as such. The object of my analysis is Homer’s Iliad, the tradition of militant rage that persists in the Bronze Age that was carried though in song well throughout 4th Century Democratic Athens. Over the course of this paper I will come to see Achilles not only as a flat warrior-model, but as a thumo-resisting hero who creates a legitimate and ethical stasis against the rule of the tyrant Agamemnon, and also a parrhesiastes. In addressing the dense network of themes I just described, I will be making close readings of the Ancient Greeks, including Homer, Solon, Plato, Aristotle and their interpreters: Peter Sloterdijk, Kostas Kalimtzis, Gregory Nagy, Michel Foucault, Leonard Muellner, DL Cairns and Glen Most.

VoegelinView, 2019

Whether a play ends in tragic defeat, rises to a comedic victory, or depicts the more ambiguous exploits of history, each play prompts us to question the aims and actions of its leading characters in light of contending theories of virtue and statesmanship, while providing us with the evidence necessary for a more profound weighing of those theories, and thereby provides us with an invaluable education in political wisdom.

Research Article, 2019

Re-reading of Shakespeare has undergone significant transformations in the last few decades, for Shakespeare's plays always have something to say about the time they are read. The strong relationship between drama and political sciences is another factor for Shakespeare adaptations and appropriations. Instead of speaking about specific events describing the way they occur, Shakespearean plays reveal truths behind the so-called and perceived truths, not what is visible but what is invisible, not what happens but what could happen, focusing on historical, political and sociological probabilities and prophecies. Shakespeare's plays are a storehouse for such probabilities and prophecies. In his Roman tragedies, Shakespearescripted many ideas, probabilities and prophecies about the concepts of state and politics, which seem to belong to our own modern times. This study aims to reread Shakespeare's Julius Caesar on the basis of political context with reference to two contemporary political concepts: deep state and parallel state.