{"product_id":"becoming-achilles-richard-kerr-holway-9780739146910","title":"Becoming Achilles: Child-sacrifice, War, and Misrule in the lliad and Beyond","description":"Viewing the Iliad and myth through the lens of modern psychology, in Becoming Achilles: Child-Sacrifice, War, and Misrule in the Iliad and Beyond, Richard Holway shows how the epic underwrites individual and communal catharsis and denial. Sacrificial childrearing generates but also threatens agonistic, glory-seeking ancient Greek cultures. Not only aggression but knowledge of sacrificial parenting must be purged. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eJust as Zeus contrives to have threats to his regime play out harmlessly (to him) in the mortal realm, so the Iliad dramatizes threats to Archaic and later Greek cultures in the safe arena of poetic performance. The epic represents in displaced form destructive mother-son and father-daughter liaisons and resulting strife within and between generations. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eHolway calls into question the Iliad's (and many scholars') presentation of Achilles as a hero who speaks truth to power, learns through suffering, and exemplifies kingly virtues that Agamemnon lacks. So too the Iliad's cathartic process, whether conceived as purging innate aggression or arriving at moral clarity. Instead, Holway argues, Achilles (and Socrates) try to prove they are not what at bottom they experience themselves to be--needy, defenseless children, who fear to acknowledge, much less speak out against, parents' use of them to meet parents' needs. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhat emerges from Holway's analysis is not only a new reading of the Iliad, from its first word to its last, but a revised account of the family dynamics underlying ancient Greek cultures. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Richard Kerr Holway\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0739146912\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780739146910\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e Lexington Books\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 11\/17\/2011\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 270\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Paperback\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eWeight:\u003c\/b\u003e 0.83lbs\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eSize:\u003c\/b\u003e 8.80h x 6.10w x 0.90d\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eReview Citation(s): \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003eChoice\u003c\/i\u003e 07\/01\/2012","brand":"Richard Kerr Holway","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":44169667772671,"sku":"9780739146910","price":53.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_49f5d3b8-5661-46e8-ad8f-0cd2e6a15ead.jpg?v=1689654233","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/becoming-achilles-richard-kerr-holway-9780739146910","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}