著者

Wilcox J. M.

出版者

慶應義塾大学日吉紀要刊行委員会

雑誌

慶応義塾大学日吉紀要 英語英米文学 (ISSN:09117180)

巻号頁・発行日

no.45, pp.35-69, 2004

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In Book 7 two key events take place: the encounter between Hektor and Aias, and the gathering of the dead. Although Book 7 clearly is not as well-engineered, moving and pivotal as Book 6, the bright velocities of the rhythm and the supple tones of the melody, which seem to alternately squeeze and let go of the language which robustly and chromatically fills out the beadlike arrays of its hexametric structure, tell us it's Homer. The Iliad generates more wonder each time one comes into contact with the magic of its poetry, for one becomes lost among the perpetually evolving and tangible beauties of its musical whirlpools and oscillating rhythms, its chiseled curves and balletic twirls.Adventuring through the 'clang tinkle boomhammer' of James Joyce's tour de force, Ulysses, one comes across the phrase, 'a chemistry of stars'. One may perceive an 'amino charm' and 'harmonic structure' in Richard Powers' musical novel, The Gold Bug Variations, where DNA, a Bach fugue and love intervolve. In one of Emily Dickinson's poems, we hear and see the dynamic and precious lines, 'The prism never held the hues, it only heard them play'. What do all of the above quotes have in common? All could, in fact, be applied to the poetry of Homer, for Homer's universe is both mysteriously remote, yet intensely intimate, bright and strident, yet tender and crepuscular, melodic and fluid, yet sudden and syncopated.One might receive an impression or notice an effect of this type in a xylograph of Ando Hiroshige from his series, Meishi Edo Hyakkei ( A Hundred Famous Views of Edo). In 'Asakusagawa Shubi-no matsu Ommayagashi', we see the distant dots of stars and a proximate boat with closed green cane blinds. Between the seeming calm of river and sky twists a dragon-shaped pine tree, one unbroken (unlike previous ones) by hurricanes. The crisp cusp of the Moon is barely visible. Did a similar slice of outer space arc over the plain of Troy more than three thousand years ago, that evening when Ajax was given the sword on which he would ultimately fall?