Tragic Meaning: Daniel Mendelsohn on The Iliad

Wed Jan 15 2025 at 07:00 pm to Wed Feb 19 2025 at 07:00 pm UTC-05:00

Online | Online

The New York Review of Books
Publisher/HostThe New York Review of Books
Tragic Meaning: Daniel Mendelsohn on The Iliad
Advertisement
Join Daniel Mendelsohn for a six-session webinar on Homer's Iliad
About this Event

Six one-hour sessions: January 15, 22, 29; February 5, 12, and 19. All sessions will start at 7pm EST.


Homer’s epic about the consequences of a single incident in the final year of the Trojan War magnificently established the terms for the “idea of the tragic” and its accoutrements: the tragic hero, tragic irony, the tragic “flaw.” Confronted with a devastating insult to his honor, the Greek’s greatest warrior, Achilles, withdraws from the fighting as he struggles with the meaning of the choices he has made—not least, the choice to die young in return for everlasting glory. But his withdrawal sets in motion a sequence of events that will result in a loss far greater than the one that spurred his original crisis, precipitating the hero’s climactic confrontation with mortality.



About Daniel Mendelsohn
Event Photos

Daniel Mendelsohn, the Editor-at-Large of The New York Review of Books, is an award-winning critic, author, essayist, and translator. His books include An Odyssey: A Father, a Son, and an Epic and three collections of essays and reviews, including Waiting for the Barbarians: Essays from the Classics to Pop Culture and Ecstasy and Terror: From the Greeks to Game of Thrones, both published by New York Review Books. Mr. Mendelsohn is the Charles Ranlet Flint Professor of Humanities at Bard College and the Director of the Robert B. Silvers Foundation, a charitable trust that supports writers of nonfiction, essay, and criticism.


About this series

Tragic consciousness—the awareness that human life is bound by inescapable limits beyond our control, and against which we nonetheless struggle as we seek agency and meaning in our lives—has been central to the Western imagination since Homer’s Iliad. In this series of four weekly seminars, the author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn, the New York Review’s Editor-at-Large, will lead participants through an exploration of “the idea of the tragic” as expressed in the foundational works of European civilization. The first seminar, devoted to the Iliad—the first great expression of a hero’s struggle with the meaning of mortality in the Western tradition—will be followed by sessions on selected works by the three great Athenian dramatists, Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides, examining how notions of fate and agency, destiny and history, glory and abjection, evolved along with tragedy during its century-long heyday in Athens.

Advertisement

Event Venue

Online

Tickets

USD 214.19 to USD 427.60

Sharing is Caring:

More Events in Online

Class Overview
Wed Jan 15 2025 at 06:00 pm Class Overview

Online

January How to Submit a Great Application 101
Wed Jan 15 2025 at 06:00 pm January How to Submit a Great Application 101

Online

Einb\u00fcrgerungsgesetz
Wed Jan 15 2025 at 06:30 pm Einbürgerungsgesetz

Online

The History of Suicide and Prescription Safe Plans
Wed Jan 15 2025 at 06:30 pm The History of Suicide and Prescription Safe Plans

Online

French Intro Crash Course
Wed Jan 15 2025 at 07:30 pm French Intro Crash Course

Online

Los Angeles CyberSecurity Conference 2025
Thu Jan 16 2025 at 08:00 am Los Angeles CyberSecurity Conference 2025

Online

CA State Chico, RN Refresher - 16 week Online Course
Thu Jan 16 2025 at 08:00 am CA State Chico, RN Refresher - 16 week Online Course

Online

Online is Happening!

Never miss your favorite happenings again!

Explore Online Events