UCLA

In this dissertation, I challenge the dominant narrative in Iliad scholarship that has tended either to disregard feminine voices or to dismiss their relevance to the poem’s overall evaluation of heroic society. My methodology is primarily literary-critical, but I also make use of anthropological and sociological theories of gender, such as R.W. Connell’s concept of hegemonic masculinity. I argue that feminine voices and perspectives are central to the Iliad’s moral program, and that the epic uses them to critique the destruction that the traditional masculine values of Homeric warriors cause to community and family ties. The Iliad does not valorize the strict binary between masculinity and femininity that is upheld by certain characters in the epic, but instead suggests that some “feminine” qualities are intimately linked with a warrior’s identity and role as protector. The poem constructs a femininity that both strives to preserve life and is ultimately doomed in this endeavor, but which is nevertheless portrayed as more beneficial to society than the kind of warrior masculinity that excludes all aspects of femininity from itself. I further propose that this critique of normative warrior masculinity in the Iliad aligns with a shift in gender roles and warrior identity that appears in the archaeological record of Greece in the late Early Iron Age (c. 800-700 BCE). I suggest that the Iliad’s evaluation of heroic masculinity reflects societal unease with the ways in which traditional warrior values were beginning to threaten the stability of the emerging polis by prioritizing the pursuit of kleos, “glory,” over all else.