Catharsis, Audience, and Closure in Greek Tragedy

Abstract It is a deeply held assumption among the Greeks of the archaic and classical periods that the sharing of tears and suffering creates a bond of common humanity between mortals. This is the bond that the two bitter enemies Priam and Achilles discover at the end of the Iliad (24. 507 ff.). It is also the bond between the survivors and indirect victims of the Trojan war gathered in the house of Menelaus at the beginning of Odyssey 4. The bonding between the beggar (Odysseus in disguise) and the swineherd Eumaeus in Odyssey 14—15 operates in a lower register of style, class, and situation, but conduces to the same effect, as they share their tales of the misfortunes and vicissitudes of their lives.