Experiencing Hektor

Lynn Kozak turns a close-reading lens on Hektor by tracking every point at which he enters the Iliad. Each appearance is studied in its surrounding narrative and for its stylistic features, so that the figure is examined case by case rather than summarised as one settled portrait.

Through this method, the study questions views of Hektor that have circulated among popular readers and within scholarship alike. Its scrutiny extends to the poem as a whole, testing how the Iliad has been understood and unsettling some of the conclusions that have long supported those readings.