‘But Why has my Spirit Spoken with me thus?’: Homeric Decision-Making

Abstract

It has been argued, above all by Bruno Snell, that there is lacking in the Homeric poems any notion of the ‘self as an integrated whole; the individual is regarded rather as an assembly of more or less independent psychic forces. There can thus, it is argued, be no making of decisions by individuals in the Homeric poems, because there is no such thing as a psychic whole which could decide; in his Scenes from Greek Drama, Snell argues not only that Homer in theIliaddoes not explicitly present Achilles as deciding to avenge Patroclus and die young, but also that there are differences in outlook between Homer and Aeschylus which mean that Homercouldnot portray such a decision, whereas Aeschylus could.

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