Nietzsche, Homer, and Cruelty | Episode LVI

New Humanists

Why was it that the Greeks, the most humane of all peoples, also possessed such a tigerish lust for blood? Why did the Greeks so delight in Homer's depiction of cruelty and death in the Iliad? That is the question animating Friedrich Nietzsche's preface to an unwritten book, "Homer's Contest." Nietzsche turns to the dark Hellenic past, the "womb of Homer" for an explanation, and finds it in Strife, the double-souled goddess lauded by Hesiod.

Friedrich Nietzsche's Homer's Contest: http://www.northamericannietzschesociety.com/uploads/7/3/2/5/73251013/nietzscheana5.pdf

Lee Fratantuono's Madness Unchained: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780739122426

Robin Lane Fox's Homer and His Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781541600447

Hesiod's Theogony, Works and Days: https://amzn.to/467Nh3l

Dan Carlin's Death Throes of the Republic: https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-history-death-throes-of-the-republic-series/

C.S. Lewis's Surprised by Joy: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780062565433

Jacob Burkhardt's The Greeks and Greek Civilization: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780312244477

René Girard's Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780804722155

New Humanists episode on Simone Weil's "The Iliad, or the Poem of Force": https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-iliad-or-the-poem-of-force-episode-xxi/id1570296135?i=1000557727910

New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/

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Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com