Laura M. Slatkin - The Power of Thetis: Allusion and Interpretation in the Iliad

University of California Press
Berkeley and Los Angeles, California

University of California Press, Ltd.
London, England

1991 by
The Regents of the University of California

First Paperback Printing 1995

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication
Data

Slatkin, Laura M.
The power of Thetis : allusion and inter
pretation in the Iliad / Laura M. Slatkin.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-520-20355-0
1. Homer. Iliad. 2. Thetis (Greek mythol
ogy) in literature. 3. Achilles (Greek mythology)
in literature. 4. Trojan War in literature.
1. Title.
PA4037.S49 199191-6712
883'.01dc20CIP

Printed in the United States of America
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Primed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48-1984.

TO C.A.S. AND R.L.S.
AND
TO THE MEMORY OF C.E.S.

Acknowledgments are the ultimate form of allusion. To record my gratitude to the individuals named here is to evoke with renewed pleasure the conversations from which I learned so much and the friendships out of which they arose. For a short book, then, this one boasts, happily, a long list of debts.

Like its subject Thetis, this book arrived at its present form after several stages of metamorphosis. Throughout all of them, Sara Bershtel, Margaret Carroll, and Amy Johnson, together with Pat Easterling, John H. Finley Jr., Gregory Nagy, and Richard Sacks have been heroic in their efforts to clarify my thinking about the Iliad and more. Suffice it to say allusively here that their wisdom and their fortifying affection have profoundly sustained and rewarded my work; in a real sense, they have been my collaborators.

The study began to take shape in 1976 while I was teaching at the University of California at Santa Cruz and owes much to the sympathetic interest of my colleagues and students from those incomparably stimulat

ing days, most especially to the indispensable, bracing, and illuminating criticisms of Norman O. Brown. Over recent years, Nicole Loraux has been an unfailingly responsive interlocutor, for whose commitment to this study I am deeply grateful; her challenging insight into the issues addressed here and the breadth of her perspective on them have enriched my understanding of the material and guided me to see a larger context for its meaning. With characteristic generosity and care, Richard Janko read the manuscript in all its versions and has contributed countless valuable suggestions; without his warm support and kindly prodding, this book would not exist. Helen Bacon, Andre Hayum, Seth Schein, and Froma Zeitlin have been, as always, forthright, astute, and patient critics, as have Dale Sinos, Robert Tannenbaum, and James Zetzel; I have benefitted from their compelling questions and judicious advice. For their welcome encouragement and perceptive comments, I think gratefully of the late Steele Commager, and of Harry Berger, Jr., Ann Bergren, Lillian Doherty, Helene Foley, Kathy Eden, Nancy Felson-Rubin, Douglas Frame, Michele Hannoosh, Jinyo Kim, Katherine King, Gary Miles, Michael Nagler, Holly Nagy, Joseph Russo, Rose Slatkin, and Kate Toll.

Most recently, the University of California Press has provided a return to the hospitable West Coast spirit of collective endeavor. For this I thank Richard Holway, whose knowledge of archaic Greek poetry and early enthusiasm for this study helped to get the project under