Wrath Reawakened
During the Orlov Revolt of 1769, Greek islanders get their hands on a copy of Homer’s epic tale of Troy.
1769
King George III 1760-1820
During the Orlov Revolt of 1769, Greek islanders get their hands on a copy of Homer’s epic tale of Troy.
1769
King George III 1760-1820
During the Greek Revolution of 1821-1829, against the Ottoman Empire, Irishman Edward Blaquière found his fund-raising in London hampered by doubts over whether today’s Greeks were worthy of their ancient forebears. Blaquiere showed them that the spirit of Achilles, wrathful hero of the Trojan War, lived on.
THE following anecdote, illustrative of the veneration in which the Greeks held the immortal bard of Scio,* is extracted from an account of the expedition sent into the Mediterranean in 1769, under Orloff.*
Captain Plagent,* who commanded one of the ships in this expedition, going on shore at Naxos,* took an old school edition of the Iliad which he happened to have on board,* and showed it to some of the natives, who begged it of him with the most earnest importunity.
The Captain complied with their wishes; and on going on shore again the next day, he saw an old man with his back to a wall reading the speeches of the ancient Greek heroes with all the fury of declamation, to an audience of fourteen or fifteen persons!
Scio is the Italian name for the Greek island of Chios, the traditional birthplace of Homer, author of the epic poems ‘Iliad’ and ‘Odyssey’. For many generations, authentic Greek identity was overlaid by the Islamic culture of the Ottomans and also by the Roman Catholic culture of the Franks and Venetians, who controlled many parts of Greece before and after the Fall of Constantinople in 1453.
In 1769, Empress Catherine the Great orchestrated a revolt among the Greeks against the Ottoman Empire, which had been their repressive masters since the Fall of Constantinople in 1453. The ultimately unsuccessful campaign was headed by Count Aleksei Orlov. (Blaquière’s account mistakenly prints 1789.)
Scotsmen John Elphinstone, Thomas MacKenzie and Samuel Greig were senior commanders in Russian Empire’s navy, and brought their own mostly Scottish proteges with them. The fleet, which included hired British ships with new names such as ‘Graf Tchernyshev’, was based on the neighbouring island of Paros, at Naousa, from 1770 to 1775. The Turkish fleet relied in much the same way on French seamen.
A large island in the Aegean Sea, one of the Cyclades group. According to Greek mythology, Zeus was raised here in a cave; and after Theseus slew the Minotaur of Crete with the help of Ariadne, he abandoned her on Naxos, where the god Dionysius fell in love with her. See Theseus and the Minotaur.
The Iliad is an epic poem narrating the Trojan War of the early 12th century BC, which took place in and around Troy or Ilion, now Hisarlik in Turkey. The poem has traditionally been ascribed to a Greek poet named Homer, who also composed the ‘Odyssey’. For our summary of the plot, see The Siege of Troy.
1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?
2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?
3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?
Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
What was the book that the captain showed to one of the islanders?