Andrew Messing

Professor Rothwell
Epic Greek
Between Gaskin and Snell: Psychic activity
and the organization of the Self in Homer
Interest in psychological, cognitive, facultative, and emotional aspects of the Homeric
character has been an aspect of Homeric scholarship for years. This is of little surprise, given the
ubiquity in Homer1 of descriptions concerning feelings and thoughts (their natures, causes,
origins, results, etc) and the interest of most humans (scholars included) in the nature of human
psychology and the Self cross-culturally. Homer abounds with all varieties of lexemes
modifying, representing, or encapsulating either the activity of cognition or emotion, or both. In
fact, one of the central foci within academic circles on the Homeric Self and its psychic
processes has been the apparent undifferentiating between various perception modalities, the
organs used to interpret sense-data, and the organization of a unified cognitive-emotive Self
provided by Homer for the characters in the two epics. All manner of opinion has been offered,
but the concern here is centrally finding a middle ground between two important and (largely)
polar opposite approaches to understanding the Self in Homer. It is argued that while both
approaches fundamentally obscure not only the data themselves but also offer invalid deductions
as a means of explaining the data; yet (as is so often the case) a middle ground may be offered
between the two that at the least allows for a fuller understanding and comprehension of all
involved factors.

The first approach analyzed here is typified in the work of Bruno Snell. Snell argues that
Homeric man has no concept of a body but only of the parts that compose it. Similarly he argues
that Homeric man lacks a knowledge of a psychic whole because there are no terms in Homeric
Greek comparable to our abstract terms for "soul" or "self."2 Snell arrives at this conclusion
through a number of what appear to be solid arguments. For example, to support his assertion
that Homeric man has no concept of body he analyzes the lexical components present in
Homer which deal with the body and with bodily perception. Snell begins with an analysis of the
semantics, and semantic range, of the various lexemes Homer employs in descriptive narrations
of the psychic activities of his characters, beginning with sight and seeing:
Homer benutzt zum Beispiel eine Flle von Verben, die das Sehen bezeichnen:
, , , , , , , ,
, Auch andere Verben des Sehens bei Homer erhalten
ihren eigentlichen Inhalt durch die Gebrde des Sehens oder durch affektive
Momente. etwa ist gewissermaen sehen und dabei den Mund
aufsperrenSchlielich zeigen die Wrter fr sehen, die spatter zum
Konjugationssytem zusammengezogen sind, , , , da frher nicht
die Funktion des Sehens als solche mit einem einheitlichen Verb bezeichnet ist,
sondern mehrere Verben jeweils einen bestimmten Modus des Sehens
bezeichnen.3
From this lack in Homer of any single word with a clear concept or essence of seeing Snell
concludes that for Homer no such concept existed.4
Using the same method, Snell goes on to show that Homer lacked any clear word for
body (soma, the later Greek word for body, meant in Epic Greek a dead body or corpse); rather,
the body for the Homeric was composed of various parts (skin, limbs, etc) more or less

differentiated, but not forming an integrated (in terms of organs belonging to a unified Self)
whole:5
Selbstverstndlich haben die homerischen Menschen einen Krper gehabt wie die
spteren Griechen auch, aber sie wuten ihn nicht als Krper, sondern nur als
Summe von Gliedern. Man kann also auch sagen, die homerischen Griechen
hatten noch keinen Krper im prgnanten Sinn des Wortes: Krper (Soma) ist
eine sptere Interpretation dessen, was ursprnglich als Melea oder Gyia
aufgefat wurde, als Glieder6
Finally, again using the same analytic method, Snell analyzes the Homeric , ,
and . Once more, Snell proposes that for Homer, no single word for soul in the unified
sense of a Self, existed.7 Applying Snells earlier logic here as well, one may conclude that no
conception of Self existed for the Homeric menschen: Das setzt ein Bewutsein davon voraus,
da der lebende Mensch etwas Seelisches oder Geistiges htte, ohne da man dies zunchst mit
einem bestimmten umfassenden Wort bezeichnen konnte.8 Without any definitive, discrete, and
unified conception of perceptual modalities, their organs, or indeed of a unified body or Self, for
Snell the Homeric character is composed of willkrliche und unheimliche Gewalten.9 In other
words, lacking a Self as the modern person possesses, the Homeric characters view themselves
not as a unified person but a collection of body parts, organs, and feelings, and subject to both
external and internal forces that are viewed not as independent of people themselves (as that
would require as sense of the individual Snell argues the Homeric character did not possess), but
rather form a loose collection of parts which make up each person and which lack any organizing
principle.
Snells argument has been accepted, added to, rejected in whole or in part, revised, and so
on since his influential book was published. The concern here, however, is the approach taken

and arguments presented by those who stand (for the most part) firmly opposed to Snells view.
Analysis of the two opposite approaches allows comprehension of the full range (if not details)
of approaches to this issue, and renders mostly redundant the complete and thorough inquiry into
every work on this subject. Gaskins refutation of Snells central thesis concerning the Homeric
Self provides an excellent exemplar of the required approach. Gaskin notes, appropriately, that
Snells methodology, particularly in regards to the Self, is anachronistic, and by reading into
Homer modern conceptions he seeks for something that is inappropriate to look for.10 For
Gaskin, every human possesses an organized and coherent sense of a singularity involved in
personal cognitive processes, the Self being merely a label applied to this.11 It is not necessary to
possess or use a word more or less identical to the modern Self in order to present characters who
nonetheless have a Self, and [h]ence without possessing a word for the schematic concept of the
self, Homer nevertheless thinks of his charactersand must so think of them, since he represents
them in a coherent, lifelike wayas unitary agents.12
Gaskin also questions the validity of Snells conclusion that the lack of one word
for the Self implies a lack of self. Relying on Bhmes work,13 Gaskin notes that while Homer
may not have had one word for self, it is quite possible to have many words, such as ,
, and .14 The presence of multiple related but more or less differentiated words for
mental processes does not, for Gaskin (or Bhme) mean the Homeric character is simply a mass
of parts with no I.15 Further, the fact that a given culture does not possess a particular word for
X does not necessitate a complete lack of comprehension of X, or no recognition of its
existence:16
It would be a corollary of the assumption behind the lexical method [Snells
approach of using the presence or lack of lexemes to indicate cultural possession

of particular concepts] that a society could never discover that it had all along
been working, implicitly, with some concept and proceed to baptize it[b]ut that
seems implausible. To take an example from another area of mindedness, I might
describe someone as switched off. The term I here use is an artifact of the
machine age, but does that mean that no one was ever switched off before the
machine age Surely not17
For Gaskin, the basis for Snells approach, the lexical method, is fundamentally flawed, and
therefore all conclusions reached using this method are erroneous.
The summaries of these two studies do not encapsulate the totality even of the other
studies at the poles (i.e. those authors who have argued either mainly in line with Snell or with
Gaskin), let alone various works which have taken midway positions along the spectrum.
However, as the focus here is simply to find an (at least) adequate compromise between the
extremes, the above analyses of Snell and Gaskin, in conjunction with a reanalysis of the texts, is
sufficient.
To begin with Snells side of the fence, at least one of Gaskins criticisms is quite valid.
The lack of a word in a given language, as Gaskins example of switched off aptly
demonstrates, is not indicative of a (perhaps implicit) model of the concept designated by the
word. One could take the argument even farther than does Gaskin. For one thing, while both the
Odyssey and the Iliad provide thousands of lines of Epic Greek to analyze, there are numerous
pitfalls in assuming that a word not found in Homer did not exist in ancient Greek, even granting
that in this case Homer had plenty of opportunities to use a word which provided unified
concepts for body or Self Snell found wanting. For one thing, both the Odyssey and Iliad were
oral compositions, performed and sung, and therefore deviations from both standard speech (in
terms of lexical choices, syntactical configurations, grammatical devices, etc) and discourse (in

terms of subject matter, tone, themes, transitions, narrative devices, etc).18 Additionally, there is
another anomaly, brought to light through linguistic analysis, imposed upon Homer by the epic
genre: archaicism. Both at the lexical and the syntactic level, Epic Greek was archaic when
Homer composed his epics,19 and many features appear to predate even the much earlier
Mycenaean Greek.20 To make arguments based on the presence, use, or non-existence of words
in Homer is fraught with peril. It is impossible to know whether Homers vocabulary choices in
relation to terms of consciousness, emotions, and psychic processes were in part or even largely
due to the style imposed by the genre of his oral text, or even by the archaic language used in
epic composition.
To approach the lexical method issue from another view, even if a word is present within
a language, it could well be that most speakers are not familiar with the term. In fact, the term
Self, as it is used not only by Homericists in this debate, but also by psychologists, sociologists,
and so on, is for the most part a technical term. While the following is based merely on pure
anecdotal evidence, it appears that most English speakers do not possess any more vocabulary
choices than Homer when it comes to words which designate the Self (and the Self is certainly
not one of them.) As in Homer, most speakers simply rely on words like I or me when
conceptualizing a unified identity, which for them suffices (indeed, the presence of such
pronouns alone has been used to argue for a Homeric Self21). Such pronouns are found
everywhere in Homer. Furthermore, as in Homer, English speakers frequently appear to engage
in speech which give the appearance of an organizational representation of identity which
consists merely of loose collection of parts. For example, expressions such as my brain just isnt
working today or my heart is telling me to do X, but my brain says Y or my mind is playing
tricks on me are fairly common. Despite modern knowledge of the most basic aspects of

neuroscience (the brain as the organism for thought and organization of Self), common language
may easily give the appearance that the individual possesses no Self, using the arguments relied
on by Snell and others.
Finally, even using Snells own method, different conclusions could be reached. For
example, Sullivan argues that the word autos in Homer clearly refers to a self which is
individuated and (at least to some extent) organizationally unified with respect to cognitive,
facultative, and emotive processes.22 Such a use can be clearly exemplified by examining Il.
19.89: / I myself wrested from Achilles his prize. In this line,
the use of autos rather than ego or simply bounded verbal first person pronoun on
make it clear that Homer portrays Agamemnon not merely as accepting responsibility for taking
Achilles prize, but specifying the he himself, not internal but non-unified psychic forces or
outside (e.g. divine) forces, performed this action, and is responsible for it. This seems
contradictory to the Snells interpretation of the self-understanding the Homeric character
possesses, which precludes the ability to act as agent from a first-person unified perspective as it
necessitates various non-Self forces involved in any and all action.
Given the arguments above, both those advanced by Gaskin and in this study, the
conclusion (accepted by Snell and others), that Homeric characters had no concept of Self is
inadequate, as the arguments employed have several flaws and important data are ignored.
However, rejection of this side of the spectrum does not mean an acceptance of the other
(exemplified above with Gaskins arguments). There are several arguments advanced by those
supporting (in whole or in part) Snells line of reasoning which are either ignored or treated
inadequately by Gaskin and others. In particular, those arguing against Snells illustration of the

Homeric Self fail to satisfactorily account for the role of various forces (both external and
internal) outside the Self of the Homeric characters.
An excellent example of this failure is the argument Gaskin employs to refute Snell
which in actuality undermines Gaskins position. Gaskin, in attempt to provide evidence for a
unified Self in Homer, cites Il. 11.403-10:
403: Then agitated he spoke to his great-spirited heart
404: Oh my! What indeed do I suffer? Great evil if I flee
405: Dreading the throng; but this, if I am captured, is more to be feared
406: [captured] alone: for the rest of the Danaans put to flight the sons of Cronos
407: But why then does my heart hold converse with me with respect to these
things?
408: For I know that base men depart from battle
409: But he who is pre-eminent in the fight, him it behooves especially
410: To stand mightily, whether he be smitten, or smite another.
Of particular importance (for Gaskin) are the following lines:
/ /
/ but then he [Odysseus] spoke to his great-spirited heart but why then does my
heart hold converse with me with respect to these things? For I know that base men depart from
battle. Of these lines Gaskin asserts:
Homer first says (403) that Odysseus spoke to his , and Odysseus first
words make it clearthat it is his self which is speaking. Odysseus suggests to his
that while flight would be cowardly, to be taken by the enemy would be

worse; he then asks But why has my spoken to me thus?What we have

is simply a dialogue of the self with itself. The fact that Odysseus mind is not an
incoherent assemblage of unrelated function is vividly conveyed by the
emergence of one of those functions, , first as hearer and then as speaker in
this self-dialogue.
The problem with Gaskins analysis of the passage is his conclusion that the dialogue between
Odysseus and his is really a dialogue of the Self. Gaskin asserts that line 403 makes clear
that the speaker is Odysseus Self, and goes on to argue that the passage is one of internal selfdialogue. However, in arguing so, Gaskin neatly glosses over the fact that while the subject of
in line 403 is clearly Odysseus, and the speech he begins in 407 clearly presents an I in
converse with the , this does not necessitate a self-dialogue. First, if the argument
advanced here and in Sullivan (see above) is correct, and first person pronouns such as I/me are
sufficient (or at least indicate) a sense of Self, then line 407 becomes particularly problematic for
Gaskins interpretation of the passage as one elucidating self-dialogue. Odysseus distinguishes
between my and me. The distinction between the I/me of Odysseus, and his ,
appear to indicate a differentiation in Homers characterization between the Self and the ,
supporting the view that internal organs involved in cognition and emotion were viewed as
separate and acting on the Self. In fact, examining this passage in the context of Snells argument
and Homeric psychology, Sharples states, [f]irstly, it should be noted that in [this passage] the
speaker makes reference to me as well as to the thumos."23
Also problematic in Gaskins analysis is his lack of attention towards the motivation for
the conversation between Odysseus and his . Odysseus is wondering at his experience of
cowardice, which he knows is not the appropriate response to his situation, or any situation. By
accepting that at some level the Homeric character was aware of a Self, it appears far more likely

that Odysseus is indeed conversing with some internal aspect outside of his Self he believes
responsible for a feeling that could not be his own, given its nature: With hindsight, a character
finds it difficult to regard certain actions as his owneither because he would not normally be
capable of them, or because they now seem foolish; so he ascribes them to forces outside
himself.24 Gaskin is correct to assert that this passage portrays an awareness Odysseus has of his
Self, but this very awareness, when the context for Odysseus conversation with his is
examined, contradicts Gaskins interpretation of the dialogue as one of self-dialogue.
If the dialogue is not between aspects of the Self, then the is indeed regarded by
Homer as an internal force but external to the Self. Other passages in Homer likewise support the
same conclusion:
299: Then I planned in my great-spirited heart,
300: Having gone near [to the Cyclops], and having drawn my sharp sword from
my beside thigh,
301: To wound [him] in the breast, where the lungs25 hold the
302: Clutching [the sword] in my hand, but another restrained me
303: For there we would have been ruined in sheer destruction
304: For we would not have been able to, from the lofty door,
305: Remove with our hands the heavy stone, which he had placed there.
Just as in the passage discussed in Gaskin, here again a Homeric character (again Odysseus)
converses with his . Once more, an initial plan comes is conceived by the character. Of
note is the fact that the planning is . The use of the preposition
suggests that the planning itself is not simply a product of the Self. Rather, the is used by

the Self, or perhaps aids or even imposes itself on the Self. This interpretation is reinforced later
in the passage by the presence of yet another which (checks) not only the first, but
also Odysseus. Any reading in which this combination of Odysseus and two active , one
which explicitly acts on Odysseus, is interpreted to be a unified Self made only to appear discrete
(as in my brain isnt working today) seems forced. Such a reading does not adequately account
not just for the discreteness of the , but also their active nature and their ability to impose
themselves on Odysseus Self. Odysseus strongly desires to kill the Cyclops, but he realizes a
better course of action is to wait, as killing the Cyclops at this juncture would result in the death
of both Odysseus and his comrades. However, he does not like this plan, though he realizes it is
best, so he ascribes the idea of waiting not to his Self, which is responsible via the first person
verb for the plan to kill, but to an outside (though internal) force: his .26
The conception by Homer of internal sources of cognitive-emotive processes outside the
Self is not the only indication that Gaskin and others err in positing a completely (unconscious or
no) integrated organizing principle of Self. Also of import is the ability for external forces to act
on what would be interpreted by the proposed integrated Self as the result of internal
mechanisms. For example, time after time in Homer a character thinks or feels X, and attributes
X not to the Self or to some other internal process, but to a god.27 Two examples, concerning
both the and the , will illustrate this phenomenon:
Od. 1.320: Then, having spoken thus, grey-eyed Athena departed
321: And she flew away upwards like a bird and in his [Telemachus]
322: She put passion and courage, and made him think of his father
Il. 17.569: And she [Athena] put strength into his [Menalaus] shoulders and
knees

570: and she sent into his breast the daring of a fly,
571: which being especially bound to the skin of men
572: yearning to bite, and sweet is the blood of humans
573: and she filled him with such daring about his dark
In both of these passages, it is quite clear that particular emotional states (daring, passion), are
put or placed into a Homeric character by an external force in the form of a god. Also of note is
that these states are put both into the and the . This makes perfect sense, if it is
understood that these organs are external to the Self, and therefore more apt to be themselves
influenced by external forces.
The fact that the Homeric character ascribes what are in actuality cognitive-emotive
processes of the Self to several forces, internal and external, outside of the Self tells against
Gaskins conception of the Homeric Self as an organizing principle of all cognitive-emotive
activities. Psychic activity in Homer is not simply the product of the Self. The Homeric Self was
to some extent at the mercy of other parts not only of the Homeric character, e.g. the and
the , but also to external forces. The Self in Homer is not the modern Self precisely because
of the conception that so many products of the Self were in fact external to it. However, this does
not mean, as Snell and others argue, that the Homeric Self did not exist. It is entirely possible for
a Self to exist conceived of as apart from organs of consciousness. Arguments put forth for this
Self-less Homeric character either ignore relevant data or misinterpret them. However, by
looking at the arguments at two extreme ends of the spectrum of approaches to Homeric
psychology, and finding a middle way, an adequate account of the data has been offered.
Homers characters are aware of a Self, a unified I/me, but this I does not attribute all
psychological, cognitive, facultative, and emotional processes as internal to it. This facet of the

Homeric character makes Homer, and study of Homeric psychology, all the more interesting for
its divergence from modern conceptions. The question then becomes, how much of the Homeric
character was reflected in the people of Homers time? Alas, this question is beyond the present
scope.

For convenience, Homer is used here as a generic author of both the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this is not meant
to imply a belief on the part of the author that a single author composed one or both of these poems.

Sullivan, S. D., p. 2.

Snell, B. p. 13; p. 15. Homer uses, for example, an abundance of verbs which describe sight[verbs]Also,
other verbs in Homer preserve their true content through the gesture of sight or through affective moments. ,
for instance, is effectively to look and at the same time to open wide the mouth. Finally, demonstrating that the
words for to see, which are later combined [to form] the conjugation system of the verbs , , , did
not earlier identify the function of seeing as such [in an] integrated [whole], but more verbs indicated in each case a
specific mode of vision.
4

Snell, B. p. 16.

Snell, B. p. 16-18.

Snell, B. p. 18. To be sure, the Homeric people had a body just as the later Greeks had also, but they did not know
it as body, but rather only as a sum total of subparts. One could also say the Homeric Greek did not yet have any
body in the strict sense of the word: Body (soma) is a later interpretation of what was originally perceived as Melea
or Gyia, as Limbs.

Snell, B., pp. 18-25.

Snell, B. p. 25. Presumably the living person had an awareness of some psychic or intellectual [property], but
she/he had at first no definitive all-encompassing word to describe this.

Snell, B. p. 29. haphazard and eerie forces.

10

Gaskin, p. 2.

11

Ibid.

12

Ibid

13

Die Seele und das Ich im homerischen Epos.

14

Gaskin, R., p. 3.

15

Ibid.

16

Gaskin, R., p. 3-4.

17

Gaskin, R,. p 4.

18

See e.g. Sullivan, S. D, pp. 3-4, Griffin, J., pp. 6-24, and Silk, M., pp. 11-24.

19

Sullivan, S. D., p 1.

20

Hewson & Bubenik, pp. 54-55.

21

Sullivan, S. D., p 4.

22

Sullivan, pp. 4-5.

23

Sharples, R.W., p. 2.

24

Sharples, R. W., p. 3.

25

Here following the conclusion of Onions, pp. 23-29, that the is really the lungs. It is likely that this
interpretation is not entirely accurate (see e.g. Sullivan, pp. 25-26). The location may very well refer to a more
general chest area (cf. Sullivan pp. 26-27), and more importantly, the is not always physical (see e.g. Koziak,
1073-4; Sullivan 23-24, p. 28).

26

Sharples, R. W., p. 3.

27

Onians, R.B., pp. 51-52.

Works Cited
Gaskin, R. (1990). Do Homeric Heroes make real decisions? The Classical Quarterly. 40(1): 115.
Griffin, J. (2004). Homer: The Odyssey. (2nd ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hewson, J, & Bubenik, V. (2006). From case to adposition: The development of configurational
syntax in Indo-European languages. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Onians, R. B. (1951). The Origins of European Thought: About the Body, The Mind, the Soul,
the World, Time, and Fate. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Silk, M. (1987). Homer: The Iliad. (2nd ed). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sharples, R. W. (1983). But Why Has My Spirit Spoken with Me Thus?: Homeric DecisionMaking. Greece & Rome. 30(1): 1-7.
Snell, B. (1975). Die Entdeckung des Geistes. Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Rupert.
Sullivan, S. D. (2004). Psychological Activity in Homer: A Study of the Phrn. Ottawa: Carleton
University Press.