Homers Hero : Human Excellence in the Iliad and the Odyssey

Draws on Plato to argue that Homer elevated private life as the locus of true friendship and the catalyst of the highest human excellence.

Offering a new, Plato-inspired reading of the Iliad and the Odyssey, this book traces the divergent consequences of love of honor and love of ones own private life for human excellence, justice, and politics. Analyzing Homers intricate character portraits, Michelle M. Kundmueller concludes that the poet shows that the excellence or virtue to which humans incline depends on what they love most. Ajaxs character demonstrates that human beings who seek honor strive, perhaps above all, to display their courage in battle, while Agamemnons shows that the love of honor ultimately undermines the potential for moderation, destabilizing political order. In contrast to these portraits, the excellence that Homer links to the love of ones own, such as by Odysseus and his wife, Penelope, fosters moderation and employs speech to resolve conflict. It is Odysseus, rather than Achilles, who is the pinnacle of heroic excellence. Homers portrait of humanity reveals the value of love of ones own as the better, albeit still incomplete, precursor to a just political order. Kundmueller brings her reading of Homer to bear on contemporary tensions between private life and the pursuit of public honor, arguing that individual desires continue to shape human excellence and our prospects for justice.