Le langage du corps dans l’Iliade

• Main Author: Véronique Lostoriat Delabroise
• Format: Article
• Language: fra
• Published: Presses universitaires de Caen 2001-12-01
• Series: Kentron
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/kentron/2089

The numerous words alluding to the human body all through the text of Homer’s Iliad are organised in such a coherent system that they constitute what could be called a language of the Homeric body. First of all, the physical characteristics associated with the names of the gods and heroes (swift-footed Achilles) have a nominal function as well, and even perpetuate the traces of more ancient myths.Furthermore, any reference to the body takes on a strong moral symbolic value, with beauty and ugliness thus becoming value judgments.Information on the unfolding of battles is conveyed through information about the heroes’ bodies. It is also important to take into account the important role played by some words which underline the existence of a very strong link between some bodily organs and broader notions of life, thought and the individual. In the Iliad, the centre of thought is commonly situated in the phrenes, the lungs, and a single – ambivalent – word is used to refer to the skin as well as the body or the individual itself.The heroes of the Iliad evidently exist first through their bodies and this notion of corporal identity pertains to a psychoanalytical conception which could be summed up thus : the image of the body is the image of the self, a notion widely developed by psychoanalysis since. This is a predominant conception with Homer, which he applies to men as well as to gods.