The Classical Regime of Literary Comfort: From Homer to Aristotle

Abstract

This chapter starts from a close reading of the famous scene of consolation between Achilles and Priamos in the Iliad’s closing book (Book 24). The logic of ‘eleos’ that governs the scene is related to what in the book is identified as the ‘classical regime of consolation’, derived from a number of consolatory writings that date from Antiquity (Crantor, Cicero, Seneca, …). In the chapter’s closing section the classical regime of comfort is related to Plato and Aristotle’s analyses of literary writing, the infamous discussion on ‘mimesis’.