Reason, Emily
(2024)
The changing nature of θυμός in Homer, Plato and Apollonius of Rhodes.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
Θυμός in early Greek literature is largely conceived in these three ways:
1) Part of the soul. Using Plato’s Republic as the starting point, most analyses reference θυμός as part of broader works about the soul. Some scholars map back Plato’s ideas, trying to find their origins in Homer.
2) Seat of emotions. The θυμός is discussed in relation to various emotions and is often agreed to be the “seat of emotions”, a conclusion supported by examples from Homer and Plato.
3) A physical entity. Using select examples from Homer a physical definition of θυμός is postulated as “smoke” or “breath”.
More recently Clarke examines θυμός alongside a “family” of other words including φρήν/φρένες, ἦτορ, κῆρ, κραδίη, πραπίδες, and νόος. He does not discuss all aspects of the θυμός in Homer, or consider it independently of the other words. Caswell also skims over certain of its activities in Homer. The most comprehensive recent review of θυμός in Homer is provided by Cairns in his Oxford Classical Dictionary entry. Cairns’ review, though, is necessarily a pit-stop tour of the Homeric θυμός. An analytically detailed review of all the various uses of θυμός in Homer is the first gap in the literature that this thesis addresses. New light is shed particularly on the range of influences on the θυμός, and on the categories of options that the θυμός is said to debate or ponder with different verbs used for different categories.
After examining the uses of θυμός in the Homeric epics, this thesis also compares them with Plato’s use of θυμός, before looking forward in time to Apollonius of Rhodes’ epic the Argonautica to determine the relative influences of Homer and/or Plato. This is the second gap in the literature to be addressed: There are, to my knowledge, no works that deal with θυμός in the Argonautica, except as a brief footnote in studies of Euripides’ Medea where the analysis is restricted to the single character of Medea. In addition, three themes are followed through – heat and θυμός, anger and θυμός, and shame/courage and θυμός to illustrate the development of θυμός over time. It is in this section that Aristotle is added to Homer, Plato and Apollonius, as his works make a valuable contribution to the aspects of both heat and courage in connection with θυμός. The vast difference in the portrayal of θυμός by the various authors makes it possible to trace clear threads of thought, some that appear in Homer and Apollonius but not in the philosophers, some that are seen only in the philosophers, and some that while absent in Homer appear in both the philosophers and Apollonius. When later authors use θυμός in a way that is not prominent in Homer, this thesis looks back to ascertain whether it is truly absent. In doing so it discovers an aspect of θυμός that Apollonius makes much of, the family-oriented θυμός, and finds definite evidence of it in Homer that has been largely overlooked in previous academic discussions.
I conclude that while Apollonius consciously follows a Homeric pattern in his use of θυμός and does not follow the soul-centric description in Plato’s Republic, he nevertheless embraces the physical description of θυμός seen in Plato’s Timaeus and continued in other medical and philosophical literature.
Actions (Archive Staff Only)
 |
Edit View |
Tools
Tools
