"Quand Achille veut tuer Agamemnon". Le départ de la colère d’Achille : Iliade I, v. 188-205

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During the verbal sparring between Agamemnon and Achilles, in the beginning of the Iliad, we can note a particular moment that is really signifying the beginning of Achilles’ anger: dialogue’s breaking off, when Achilles wants to kill Agamemnon. Achilles is showing a very strong difficulty to control his physical reaction, and, inside of him, his antagonism between phusis and logos is dominated by the instance of ‘non-subject’ (the sphere of the phusis). The main character of the process in fact, who really gives a sense to the scene, is Athena: she’s coming to install both characters (an arrogant but yet moderate Agamemnon, and an impulsive but yet religious Achilles), and to give a religious value to this epic. She’s getting Achilles out of the binding situation in which he’s going to get involved, practicing about him – certainly without knowing it – an ‘elliptical psychiatry’.

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