The “Fathers and Sons Reading Together” program is a carefully curated list of poetic, literary, historical, religious, and philosophical texts intended to be read by fathers in concert with their sons. The goal is to assist fathers and sons in their joint study of the good life. Please consider sharing a link to the Gymnasium with (or forwarding this email to) anyone you think would benefit from these resources.
N.B. the primary father-son relations in the Homeric texts are: Peleus & Achilles, Hector & Priam, Odysseus & Telemachus, and Peleus & Odysseus.
1.) What are the most characteristic features of each father and son pairing, and how do they compare to each of the others?
2.) To what extent do each of the most characteristic features of the father and son pairings translate into the leadership they exhibit in battle and the friendships they are able (or unable) to establish with others? Is it the case that if there are fundamentally flawed characteristics and, if so, do those flaws work to the disadvantage of the people who follow their leadership into battle?
3.) What are we to make of Nestor if we understand him as a fatherly figure among the Achaeans? In answering this question, you might want to pay particular attention to the embassy scene in Book 9 of the Iliad and Telemachus’s journey to Pylos in Book 3 of the Odyssey.
4.) Related to question 3, describe Phoenix’s fatherly relation to Achilles and the obligation Achilles does (or should) owe him. More generally, how does Phoenix’s relationship to Achilles reveal the kind of slide from fatherly love to brotherly love, honor, and respect we all experience in our own lives with those who are older and more experienced than ourselves? Describe how this might provide a way of answering question 2.
5.) Describe how Telemachus’s experience with Nestor’s son, Pisistratus, reveals what it is that Telemachus needs from Odysseus that he cannot receive from his mother alone. That is, what seems to be proper teaching that Pisistratus has received from Nestor that Telemachus has not received from Odysseus and cannot receive from Penelope? More generally, what seems to be the teaching of a father to a son that issues in the son’s ability to establish proper friendships among other men? Does this (or could this) speak to the all-important question of leadership in question 2? — consider here also Odysseus’s relationship to Eumaeus.