Experiencing Hektor: Character in the Iliad

At the Iliad's climax, the great Trojan hero Hektor falls at the hands of Achilles. But who is Hektor? He has resonated with audiences as a tragic hero, great warrior, loyal husband and father, protector of a doomed city. Yet never has a major work sought to discover how these different aspects of Hektor's character accumulate over the course of the narrative to create the devastating effect of his death.

This book documents the experience of Hektor through the Iliad's serial narrative. Drawing on diverse tools from narratology, to cognitive science, but with a special focus on film character, television poetics, and performance practice, it examines how the mechanics of serial narrative construct the character of Hektor. How do we experience Hektor as the performer makes his way through the epic? How does the juxtaposition of scenes in multiple storylines contribute to character? How does the narrative work to manipulate our emotional response? How does our relationship to Hektor change over the course of the performance?

Lynn Kozak demonstrates this novel approach through a careful scene-by-scene breakdown and analysis of the Iliad, focusing especially on Hektor. In doing so, she challenges and destabilises popular and scholarly assumptions about both ancient epic and the Iliad's 'other' hero.