Conclusion

Abstract

AbstractThe concluding chapter revisits the problem of force and the Homeric subject initiated by Weil and Snell within the context of the major findings of the previous chapters. The chapter interprets the language of Homeric force in light of a posthumanist subjectivity distinct from the idea of the individual inherent in Weil’s Judeo-Christian model and Snell’s Hegelian model. Relying on the work of Donna Haraway and anthropological precedents such as that of Louis Dumont and Marylin Strathern, this chapter suggests that the Homeric subject be considered not merely as a negated or failed individual, but as an intersubjective dividual, one who is defined by a human-divine symbiosis. Furthermore, this chapter shows that the symbiotic relationship between human and divine remains a point of contention and frustration for humans throughout the poem, and especially for Achilles, from Athena’s prevention of Achilles’ murder of Agamemnon in Iliad 1 to Achilles’ vain attempts at mutilating the corpse of Hector in Iliad 24.