Historical Psychology
Reading Trauma in the Iliad
This post is a continuation of my substack on the Iliad. Following the completion of book-by-book posts entries will fall into three basic categories: (1) new scholarship about the Iliad; (2) themes: (expressions/reflections/implications of trauma; agency and determinism; performance and reception; diverse audiences); and (3) other issues of texts/transmission/and commentary that occur to me. As a reminder, these posts will remain free, but there is an option to be a financial supporter. All proceeds from the substack are donated to classics adjacent non-profits on a monthly basis.
As I work my way back through the Iliad in Greek, one of the things I am interested in thinking about is how the epic encodes and expresses what we might recognize as trauma. This can shape certain expressions, the characterization of individuals, and the structure of narratives themselves. I have written in the substack about how a trauma-informed approach to reading the Iliad can help us understand Hektor better, can help us see Andromache more clearly, and may also serve to explain aspects of Achilles’ character.
Our word trauma is related to the Ancient Greek word for wound. I think there’s already a strong sense of a wound as a physical locus of pain and a sign for narrative experience and psychological states as well in the Odyssey where Odysseus’ scar functions as both a metonym for his character and also a metaphor for the the impact that experiences have in shaping our identity. There’s some of this is the physiognomic logic of the Iliad as well, but it is less clear and more derogatory (as in the case of Thersites’ body especially).
But what does it mean to talk about trauma cross-culturally and over time? As many often object, psychological ideas are often culturally constitutive and ‘maladies’ are not often translatable in an easy way (as in the case of Japanese shut-ins or penis-thieves). Jonathan Shay was one of the first people to show the value of thinking about the Iliad alongside Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder in his Achilles in Vietnam (with the follow-up, Odysseus in America). While his arguments developed out of using these narratives in clinical settings with veterans, they also stand up well as interpretive interventions in ancient texts, pushing back against any insistence that applying modern psychology to ancient narratives is too anachronistic to be worth doing.
I tried to push this a little further in my work on the Odyssey (culminating in my book The Many-Minded Man). One of my chief interests there was in exploring whether Shay’s ideas about trauma and the applicability of modern clinical studies to ancient minds worked beyond the central figure. While Shay’s books are excellent investigations of how Achilles and Odysseus are like modern veterans, they do not address the issue of whether the epics convey a psychological reality for other characters as well, including women, children, and enslaved people. If the human mind has not changed significantly in terms of its basic neurobiological framework in 3000 years and cultural differences are legible as ‘software’ installed in this biological structure, then differences conditioned by gender, age, and social role should be clear in the epic as well.
While Shay’s work opened up many conversations about Achilles, fewer scholars have made the leap to talk about other characters as well. Franco Maiullari’s article on Andromache (“Andromache, A Post-Traumatic Character in Homer”) sets out to correct this (coming out a few years before Fabian Horn’s excellent piece on Hektor). This article explores Andromache’s major scenes in the Iliad and identifies features that resonate with descriptions of PTSD focusing on diagnostic criteria for psychological trauma, acute traumatic reactions, and PTSD proper. Using indicators of PTSD, Maiullari re-reads each of Andromache’s speeches and argues how the details the epic presents helps us to see Andromache’s experiences as traumatic (in a modern sense). The discussion is clear and effective. I think there is still room for more, in comparing this discussion to different definitions of PTSD and specific case studies, but my sense is that Maiullari is ultimately right.
One of the things I also enjoy about his work is in the conclusion he provides both a larger framework within which to work and understand this work as not being anachronistic at all (26):
“Interpreting ancient works with modern criteria always needs to be done with caution and following a rigorous method rooted in textual analysis; in other words, the interpretation must carefully refer back to the text in order to support the argument and to avoid overinterpretations. The model for this work is that of the principles of Historical Psychology,2 based on an interdisciplinary method: philological and psychological (medical) expertise integrating their different skills while abiding by their different methodological principles. Philology must guarantee the reliability of the sources and the compatibility of the interpretation with linguistic, historical and cultural points of view; psychology and medicine, while adhering to the text try to promote new links and interpretative cues”
In my work, I use a concept called “folk psychology” from Jerome Bruner and others to argue that ancient epics present an implicit theory of mind. This works on the level of composition and generation, but Maiullari invocation of historical psychology is useful as well because it provides guidelines for the reception and interpretation of ancient works, centering the need for the modern interpreter to carefully test readings against the dangers of anachronism. This paper thus provides a good methodological foundation and a case study for thinking about trauma in the Iliad.
N.B. This is an incomplete bibliography. Let me know if there is anything else I should add to it.
Bowie, Angus. “Narrative and emotion in the « Iliad »: Andromache and Helen.” Emotions and narrative in ancient literature and beyond: studies in honour of Irene de Jong. Eds. De Bakker, Mathieu, Van den Berg, Baukje and Klooster, Jacqueline. Mnemosyne. Supplements; 451. Leiden ; Boston (Mass.): Brill, 2022. 48-61. Doi: 10.1163/9789004506053_004
Cairns, Douglas. “Homero, Aristóteles y la naturaleza de la compasión.” Circe, vol. 26, no. 2, 2022, pp. 45-74. Doi: 10.19137/circe-2022-260202
Christensen, Joel P.. The many-minded man: the « Odyssey », psychology, and the therapy of epic. Myth and Poetics; 2. Ithaca (N. Y.): Cornell University Pr., 2020.
Finglass, P. J.. “Narrating pity in Greek epic, lyric, tragedy, and beyond.” Emotions and narrative in ancient literature and beyond: studies in honour of Irene de Jong. Eds. De Bakker, Mathieu, Van den Berg, Baukje and Klooster, Jacqueline. Mnemosyne. Supplements; 451. Leiden ; Boston (Mass.): Brill, 2022. 181-196. Doi: 10.1163/9789004506053_013
Maiullari, Franco. “ANDROMACHE, A POST-TRAUMATIC CHARACTER IN HOMER.” Quaderni Urbinati Di Cultura Classica 113, no. 2 (2016): 11–27. http://www.jstor.org/stable/44123006.
Horn, Fabian. “The psychology of aggression: Achilles’ wrath and Hector’s flight in Iliad 22.131-7.” Hermes, vol. 146, no. 3, 2018, pp. 277-289. Doi: 10.25162/hermes-2018-0023
Oele, Marjolein. “Priam’s despair and courage: an Aristotelian reading of fear, hope, and suffering in Homer’s « Iliad ».” Logoi and muthoi : further essays in Greek philosophy and literature. Ed. Wians, William. SUNY Series in Ancient Greek Philosophy. Albany (N. Y.): State University of New York Pr., 2019. 297-317.
Pache, Corinne. “Women after war: weaving « nostos » in Homeric epic and in the twenty-first century.” Combat trauma and the ancient Greeks. Eds. Meineck, Peter and Konstan, David. New Antiquity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 67-85.
Raaflaub, Kurt A.. “War and the city: the brutality of war and its impact on the community.” Combat trauma and the ancient Greeks. Eds. Meineck, Peter and Konstan, David. New Antiquity. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 15-46.
Race, William H. (2014). Phaeacian therapy in Homer’s « Odyssey ». In Meineck, Peter & Konstan, David (Eds.), Combat trauma and the ancient Greeks (pp. 47-66). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Russo, Joseph. “Re-thinking Homeric psychology: Snell, Dodds and their critics.” Quaderni Urbinati di Cultura Classica, N. S., no. 101, 2012, pp. 11-28.
Russo, J. A. and Simon, B.. “Homeric psychology and the oral epic tradition.” Journal of the History of Ideas, vol. XXIX, 1968, pp. 483-498.
Shay, Jonathan. Achilles in Vietnam: combat trauma and the undoing of character. New York: Maxwell Macmillan, 1994.
Shay, Jonathan. Odysseus in America: combat trauma and the trials of homecoming. New York: Scribner’s, 2002.