Description
In this first full-length treatment of the Iliad as a work of political thought, Hammer demonstrates how Homer's epic is also an ancient Greek discussion on political ethics. Hammer redefines political thought as the activity of addressing issues of collective identity and organization. Using this understanding of politics, he discusses how the characters in the Iliad, through their larger-than-life actions and interactions, embody community issues of authority, conflict, judgment, and the interrelationship between personal and collective identity. The characters' many quarrels, laments, reconciliations, and vows of loyalty and friendship all critically model the principles and controversies of underlying Greek political ethics of communal responsibility and relationship.
Much of modern Western political thought focuses on classical Greek discussions of political philosophy. Hammer demonstrates that the Iliad constitutes another such ancient Greek political discussion.
About the Author
Dean Hammer is the John W. Wetzel Professor of Classics and Professor of Government at Franklin and Marshall College, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Puritan Tradition in Revolutionary, Federalist, and Whig Political Theory: A Rhetoric of Origins and The Iliad as Politics: The Performance of Political Thought.
Book Information
ISBN 9780806133669
Author Dean Hammer
Format Hardback
Page Count 304
Imprint University of Oklahoma Press
Publisher University of Oklahoma Press
Weight(grams) 522g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 140mm * 28mm
