The Sound of Silence in the Iliad

This thesis builds on recent scholarship on the work of simile and orality in the Iliad from Susanne Wofford and Katherine Kretler. I argue that simile and sound are not descriptive parts of the Iliad, but rather functional parts that the Iliad depends on to make its story cohesive. I then argue that Achilleus' "Menis" is enacted when the poem, in a sense, loses its voice when it no longer uses sound and simile to describe the deaths that Achilleus makes in Book 21 of the Iliad. This use of silence enacts the godlike, inhuman sense of grief and anger of "Menis," a sense that cannot be described with human words. My attention to the use of sound and hearing is intended to complement Kretler's attention to the use of on-stage performance and the singer's use of their body to perform the poem. Together, we attend to the bodies and sensations of the audience as a part of the poem, too, pointing the way to a theory that can consider the participation of the audience as part of the poem.