Blog Assignment: Similes! (Due 9/18)

The Iliad contains hundreds of similes, which do many things within the poem.  They link together characters and events through shared imagery; they open up the claustrophobic world of the battlefield; they shift perspectives and change the tone of the narrative; they bring vivid images to the mind of the audience.  In metaphors and similes, the tenor is the concept, object, or person meant or described; the vehicle is the thing it resembles.  Take this famous simile from Iliad 15:

They poured over it, rank after rank, Apollo
Leading the way with the priceless aegis
And casting down the Achaean wall with ease.

A child playing on the seashore
Will build the sand into fantastic shapes,
Then gleefully knock them down with his feet.

Yes, Apollo, all that Achaean toil
Went down like sand, and you made them run
All the way back to their ships.  Iliad 15.368-74 (Lombardo translation)

Here, the tenor is Apollo knocking down the huge Achaean fortification wall; the vehicle is the child building and knocking down sand castles on the seashore.  In this simile, the effect is both comical and terrifying-- to compare the magnificent, Olympian, aegis-bearing Apollo to a child kicking at sand castles adds comic relief, but on further reflection, the notion that the god is as capricious as a child, and that the destruction he brings to humans is as entertaining and, ultimately, as meaningless to him as knocking over a sand castle is to a gleeful child is unnerving. Note that for humans in the poem, the sea shore is a place of sorrow and isolation-- Chryses, after Agamemnon has rejected his request to ransom his daughter, retreats to the shore in grief and prays to Apollo; Achilles early in the poem retreats to the sea shore and shouts for his mother in his rage and pain at Agamemnon's insult; Achilles is almost alone on the shore, easing his pain and anger by playing his lyre when the embassy finds him in Book 9.  This simile shatters the pattern the poet has established (sea shore  = isolation, pain and grief) , and emphasizes how different the gods' perceptions and emotions are from those of humans.

Post an entry in which you transcribe a simile from the Iliad (include the book and line numbers, and specify the translation you are using if it is NOT Lombardo).  Write a paragraph or two in which you identify the tenor and the vehicle, and comment on the effect the simile has on the reader.  Think about these things as you prepare your post (you don't have to answer them all, and you are more than welcome to ask other questions; this is just to get you started): What senses are engaged-- is the simile evoking sight? sound? touch?  In what ways is the tenor like the vehicle?  In what ways is it different?  Are there any other poetic devices evident?  In the case above, the poet follows the simile with an "apostrophe," i.e., a direct address to Apollo. Is this simile part of a network of similes (e.g., hunting, farming, trees)?