Experiencing Hektor: Character in the IliadThis book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. At the Iliad's climax, the great Trojan hero Hektor falls at the hands of Achilles. But who is Hektor? He has resonated with audiences as a tragic hero, great warrior, loyal husband and father, protector of a doomed city. Yet never has a major work sought to discover how these different aspects of Hektor's character accumulate over the course of the narrative to create the devastating effect of his death. This book documents the experience of Hektor through the Iliad's serial narrative. Drawing on diverse tools from narratology, to cognitive science, but with a special focus on film character, television poetics, and performance practice, it examines how the mechanics of serial narrative construct the character of Hektor. How do we experience Hektor as the performer makes his way through the epic? How does the juxtaposition of scenes in multiple storylines contribute to character? How does the narrative work to manipulate our emotional response? How does our relationship to Hektor change over the course of the performance? Lynn Kozak demonstrates this novel approach through a careful scene-by-scene breakdown and analysis of the Iliad, focusing especially on Hektor. In doing so, she challenges and destabilises popular and scholarly assumptions about both ancient epic and the Iliad's 'other' hero. |
Contents
Bingewatching the Iliad | 1 |
1 Enter Hektor | 23 |
2 Killing Time | 69 |
3 Ends | 147 |
Reruns | 231 |
Notes | 235 |
281 | |
299 | |
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Common terms and phrases
Achaians Achilles action Agamemnon Aias Aineias allegiance allows Andromache anticipation Apollo appearance arcs armour asks Athena attached audience’s battle battlefield beat beginning body Book break bring builds callback calls catalogue character comes continuity corpse creates death Diomedes discussion earlier emotional engagement epic episode fall feel fight finally forward further future gives gods goes hands happen Hektor Homeric horses Idomeneus Iliad keeps kills knowledge leaves lines looks memory Menelaos mention minutes mission move narrative narrative switches narrator Nestor oath Odysseus once Paris past Patroklos Patroklos’s performance play Poseidon possible Priam provides recaps relationship response role runs Sarpedon says scene seen sequence sets ships shows side speaks spear speech stand story structure suggests switches switches audience alignment television tells traditional Trojans Troy wall Zeus Zeus’s