Defination of Epic
Achilles' Wrath and the Plan of Zeus
The Iliad 1 begins and ends showing people in a normal state, before and after the wrath of Achilles has precipitated the plan of Zeus. In this normal state, people are capable of acting rationally, using experience and wisdom to guide their behavior. However, during the main action of the Iliad, the wrath of Achilles and the plan of Zeus, people live in an extraordinary state of human/divine crisis, because human emotions have broken down those barriers which serve to protect them from the gods.2 In such a human/divine crisis, the disorder of human passion spreads outward, intensifying like a plague, affecting the gods themselves and disrupting the normal order of the cosmos. The resulting cosmic disorder is wonderfully represented in the Iliad by the chaotic battle of the elements between the river Xanthus (water) and the god Hephaestus (fire).
The passions of the gods are stimulated and magnified by the emotions of human beings, producing an interactive intensification of violence that can only be ultimately controlled by the plan of Zeus, requiring the deaths of Patroclus and Hector. These deaths, carefully orchestrated by Zeus, serve to reestablish boundaries and distance between humans and the gods: their relationships are normalized; the barriers are restored; and the contacts between humans and the gods are once again carefully regulated by the prudence and rituals which serve to protect people from the gods.
Human actions initiate events in the Iliad. However, once the gods are involved, people become helplessly caught up in the terrible logic of a system of rules that operate as relentlessly as the laws of physics. This system is called the plan of Zeus; it is inexorable; it is deadly; it works itself out by causing many human deaths. It is a balance of powers rather than a system of morality. The golden scale expresses the essence of the law of Zeus--balance. Human actions upset that balance in the first place,
The Iliad 1 begins and ends showing people in a normal state, before and after the wrath of Achilles has precipitated the plan of Zeus. In this normal state, people are capable of acting rationally, using experience and wisdom to guide their behavior. However, during the main action of the Iliad, the wrath of Achilles and the plan of Zeus, people live in an extraordinary state of human/divine crisis, because human emotions have broken down those barriers which serve to protect them from the gods.2 In such a human/divine crisis, the disorder of human passion spreads outward, intensifying like a plague, affecting the gods themselves and disrupting the normal order of the cosmos. The resulting cosmic disorder is wonderfully represented in the Iliad by the chaotic battle of the elements between the river Xanthus (water) and the god Hephaestus (fire).
The passions of the gods are stimulated and magnified by the emotions of human beings, producing an interactive intensification of violence that can only be ultimately controlled by the plan of Zeus, requiring the deaths of Patroclus and Hector. These deaths, carefully orchestrated by Zeus, serve to reestablish boundaries and distance between humans and the gods: their relationships are normalized; the barriers are restored; and the contacts between humans and the gods are once again carefully regulated by the prudence and rituals which serve to protect people from the gods.
Human actions initiate events in the Iliad. However, once the gods are involved, people become helplessly caught up in the terrible logic of a system of rules that operate as relentlessly as the laws of physics. This system is called the plan of Zeus; it is inexorable; it is deadly; it works itself out by causing many human deaths. It is a balance of powers rather than a system of morality. The golden scale expresses the essence of the law of Zeus--balance. Human actions upset that balance in the first place,