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What is it about?

A perceived lack of causal continuity has long been a problem for readers of the Iliad. Events that must, for the sake of plot, be understood as causally linked are often separated by thousands of lines that obscure the relationship between them. I argue that the narrator manipulates the representation of time in such a way as to emphasize the disjunction, rather than the continuity, between cause and effect in plot-significant events, thereby highlighting the middle space of delay, uncertainty, and subplot. Losing its sense of orientation in time, the audience is left to wonder whether the plot has itself gone awry.

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Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash

Photo by Jan Huber on Unsplash