Injury, grievance, and revenge, in the wrath of Achilles

In this paper I want to trace the complex relationship between grievance and revenge. Both are expressions of the rage that arises in response to feelings of injustice and humiliation, but they differ in the direction that the rage is expressed. In revenge it is outwardly directed, usually as a violent attack, while in grievance the violence is inhibited and the rage is held inwardly in a state of withdrawal. I will use characters and episodes from Richard Holmes' life of Coleridge and from Homer's Iliad to explore this theme, especially with respect to Achilles, whose rage is the chief subject of the Iliad. It is initially expressed as a withdrawal into grievance and subsequently as an active rampage of violent revenge. I will look at the consequences of these different forms of expression of anger and also try to explore what factors enabled the direction of his rage to be so dramatically reversed.