Conflict and Consensus in Early Greek Hexameter Poetry

Achilles inflicts countless agonies on the Achaeans, although he is supposed to be fighting on their side. Odysseus'' return causes civil strife on Ithaca. The Iliad and the Odyssey depict conflict where consensus should reign, as do the other major poems of the early Greek hexameter tradition: Hesiod''s Theogony and the Homeric Hymns describe divine clashes that unbalance the cosmos; Hesiod''s Wo...