University of Illinois - Illio Yearbook (Urbana Champaign, IL)

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Ill ( ' . QOARRKL BETWEEN AGAMEMNON AND ACHILLES, TV ). DEPARTURE OF HRISF.IS.

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6reek tableaux - r» 5|HE entertainment given on the evening of November u, 1897, was a notable one because of its unique character. So far as known nothing similar has ever been presented. But uniqueness was something the originators did not have in mind, and would have paid no heed to had it been suggested. The purpose they formed was to present to those who might assem- ble a truthful exhibition of scenes portrayed in Homer ' s Iliad, with fidelity to ancient types of clothing, armor, and so on. Their feeling was that the heroic incidents of the Iliad could be made to stimulate literary interest, to cultivate aesthetic taste, and, even in the depiction of martial events, to leave a feeling of serenity in the mind, due to the artistic treatment subduing somewhat the more patent animus of the scenes. No other book lends itself more easily to such representation, partly because the really noble incidents are numerous and parti} ' because they are wrought out by characters of more than human interest. For, although readers of literature think of Achilles and Diomed, Priam and Hector, Helen and Briseis as human beings, they also think of them as possessing human traits in a pneterhuman degree, and hence the quickened interest they feel in them. It is also true that the traditional past has a glamour about it that invites attention and to some degree gives excuse for weaknesses found in the actors. Homer has particular claims upon attention, because he writes in the youth of the world, and has been so fortunate as to send down to posterity an epic that has all the freshness of that day and all the finish of the most advanced literary epoch. For this reason his work stands in a class by itself, unapproached by any subsequent poet However much men may be ignorant of Homer as an author, from any study of him, few would be willing to say that it is not their understanding that he was the chiefest among all epic writers. The inspiration to undertake the task was twofold. The writer had for many years dreamed of such an evening, and, of course, had mentally before him what it should be. But lack of artistic skill lay in the path, and, furthermore, a study of such representa- tions of Homeric scenes as artists had left had long been a damper to any attempt to produce them. Fortunately Mr. N. A. Wells, when approached about it, instantly and cordially agreed to co-operate in placing a series of them upon the stage. His willing- ness had its roots partly in a fast friendship formed when we were in college together, and in his own love for the spirit of the blind poet and his work. He wanted to see what he could do in reproducing the scenes. What was first under- taken as a slight affair, culminated in a more pretentious programme, which caused about six weeks of unremitting labor on his and my part, and the cordial help of a number of members of the faculty, who chiefly made up the ca?t. The programme presented herewith gives a complete Do you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak. — Martha Storrs. 33