Annotating Homeric Emotions by a Domain-Specific Language

In this study, we introduce a novel approach to understanding the emotive content present in ancient literature, specifically focusing on the first Book of Homer’s Iliad. Recognizing the challenges inherent in interpreting emotions from ancient texts, we developed a Domain-Specific Language (DSL) tailored for this purpose. This DSL not only allows for the annotation of basic sentiments such as positive, negative, neutral, or mixed but also facilitates the identification and categorization of specific emotions. To ensure the relevance and applicability of our annotations, we mapped the extracted emotions to some authoritative domain ontologies. This mapping process aids in bridging the gap between ancient emotional expressions and contemporary understanding. Our preliminary results, which we discuss in detail, highlight the potential of our approach in offering deeper insights into the emotional landscape of ancient texts. We believe that our methodology can serve as a foundation for future studies aiming to decode emotions in historical literature.