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So I'm pretty sure I'm on the Analyst, book-nine-is-an-insertion side. And that's unfortunate, because it's clearly less interesting than trying to fit in Achilles' characterization here and in the rest of the Iliad, but I really think it just doesn't work. Maybe Achilles, as characterized in book I, would start to question the values of the society; I don't know, but I kind of doubt it. But he wouldn't question the entire concept of trading blood for material objects. For one thing, the quarrel is one that he's started, over a material object. For another, his plea to his mother is "make the Achaians come to me with threefold gifts" once they realize that they can't live without him.
Then there's the fact that he claims that Agamemnon has not offered him anything in book 11; you could excuse this as a slip of the poet's mind, except that book 9 is kind of long for that. A classmate of mine argued that Achilles is so angry that "in his reality" there has been no embassy, and that, much as I respect him, just makes no sense - perhaps in a 19th or 20th century novel, but not now. As a general rule, Homeric (and actually, most fictional characters for a very long time) are telling the truth unless it's specifically noted that they're lying; such a manipulation of the truth would be unthinkable.
I definitely think that reading Achilles as a hero defending his principles doesn't work; through the rest of the poem, he's very invested in the system of time. Why, all of a sudden, would he reject the system he fights to uphold? The only reason to withdraw from fighting over Briseis is because it's a mortal insult; but if you can't trade goods for a man's life, and death comes to all equally, then how is it such a great insult?
On another note, I kind of read Achilles' statements in the beginning of his speech as sour grapes, but I think that's anachronistic too.
This is the situation in which that time machine would be very useful.
Then there's the fact that he claims that Agamemnon has not offered him anything in book 11; you could excuse this as a slip of the poet's mind, except that book 9 is kind of long for that. A classmate of mine argued that Achilles is so angry that "in his reality" there has been no embassy, and that, much as I respect him, just makes no sense - perhaps in a 19th or 20th century novel, but not now. As a general rule, Homeric (and actually, most fictional characters for a very long time) are telling the truth unless it's specifically noted that they're lying; such a manipulation of the truth would be unthinkable.
I definitely think that reading Achilles as a hero defending his principles doesn't work; through the rest of the poem, he's very invested in the system of time. Why, all of a sudden, would he reject the system he fights to uphold? The only reason to withdraw from fighting over Briseis is because it's a mortal insult; but if you can't trade goods for a man's life, and death comes to all equally, then how is it such a great insult?
On another note, I kind of read Achilles' statements in the beginning of his speech as sour grapes, but I think that's anachronistic too.
This is the situation in which that time machine would be very useful.