I've always wondered about that. Granted, Achilles is obviously flawed so
you can understand Sps distaste for him (see ACHamilton's characterization
of Pyrochles as an Achillean hero in Structure of Allegory. At 06:34 PM
9/6/01 -0400, you wrote:
>Dear Sidney-Spenser list members,
>
> Is there a classical or Renaissance precedent for Spenser's declaration
> that
>in _The Iliad_ Homer "ensampled a good gouernour" in the character of
>Agamemnon? As many have noted, Homer's Agamemnon seems a particularly poor
>"ensample" of a good leader. If there was a tradition of reading Agamemnon in
>the manner Spenser suggests, which of Agamemnon's qualities did commentators
>praise? In the _Variorum_, William Fenn DeMoss cites Aristotle's _Politics_
>and _Ethics_ as the sources for Spenser's interpretation; however, none of the
>quotes DeMoss presents from those works seems to offer strong praise for
>Agamemnon (especially when read in their original context rather than in
>DeMoss' extracted form). Likewise, Priam in Book III of _The Iliad_ praises
>Agamemnon's people, but he says nothing about Agamemnon's quality of
>governance itself creating such a praiseworthy populace.
>
> I'm teaching _The Iliad_ this semester and I just can't get Spenser's
>remarkable interpretation out of my head!
>
>
>Scott Lucas
>
>
>
>Scott Lucas
>Department of English
>The Citadel
>171 Moultrie St.
>Charleston, SC 29409
>(843) 953-5133
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