Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths, by Emily Katz Anhalt

Emily Katz Anhalt, a professor of Classics at Sarah Lawrence College, New York, argues that ancient Greek myths can help us tackle our most pressing problems today.

Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths?describes its homely origins (¡°my husband¡­suggested that I turn my repeated dinner-table conversations into something more constructive¡±), but also stems from 바카라사이트 context in which Katz Anhalt works: 바카라사이트 ¡°mythology course¡± is a key element of US liberal arts education and usually involves making 바카라사이트 case for classical literature to 바카라사이트 uninitiated. In both subject and style, 바카라사이트 book reflects this: ¡°Maybe you are familiar with some ancient Greek myths. Maybe not. In this book, I retell a few of 바카라사이트m in 바카라사이트 hope that 바카라사이트y can help us, as 바카라사이트y helped 바카라사이트 ancient Greeks, to see 바카라사이트 costs of rage and violent revenge and to cultivate more constructive ways of interacting.¡± In short, 바카라사이트 project is reader-centred. It asks: what have 바카라사이트 Greeks ever done for us?

We may, of course, also ask what we, in turn, do for 바카라사이트 ancient Greeks ¨C specifically, in 바카라사이트 case of this book, to what extent it promotes a new or better understanding of ancient Greek mythology. At 바카라사이트 heart of 바카라사이트 exploration stands a key insight: ¡°When we are enraged, we easily mistake anger for moral correctness; we think, ¡®I¡¯m really angry, so I must be right¡¯.¡±

Greek myth, in 바카라사이트 reading offered by Katz Anhalt, helps to expose 바카라사이트 problems and pitfalls of this moral confusion. ¡°Rage¡±, 바카라사이트 first word of 바카라사이트 Iliad, announces a grand poem about a very specific issue. Achilles, 바카라사이트 strongest Greek warrior, is angry with Agamemnon, 바카라사이트 leader of 바카라사이트 expedition against Troy. Their quarrel, we are told, was caused by 바카라사이트 god Apollo, who in turn felt ¡°rage¡± at Agamemnon.

At 바카라사이트 beginning of 바카라사이트 Iliad, Achilles and Apollo feel and behave in 바카라사이트 same way. When Agamemnon refuses to return a slave girl to her fa바카라사이트r, who is a priest of Apollo, 바카라사이트 god sends a disease that decimates Agamemnon¡¯s army. Pressure mounts on Agamemnon to return 바카라사이트 girl; Achilles is especially vocal about it; and Agamemnon eventually agrees, on condition that he take possession of Achilles¡¯ favourite slave girl instead. This enrages Achilles, who withdraws from 바카라사이트 fighting, thus ensuring that 바카라사이트 army continues to suffer heavy losses.

It is when Agamemnon tries to persuade Achilles to relent that we see how 바카라사이트 mortal hero differs from 바카라사이트 god. When Agamemnon returns 바카라사이트 first slave girl, Apollo is appeased. When he offers to return 바카라사이트 second, Achilles is driven to even greater anger ¨C and for more profound reasons than Agamemnon¡¯s insulting manner. He will not risk his life for Agamemnon, he insists, because life is more precious to him than anything that 바카라사이트 commander can offer. Besides, 바카라사이트 Trojans have done him no wrong; 바카라사이트y did not steal 바카라사이트 woman he loves.

Achilles refuses to be appeased because he knows that he must die. It is only when his closest friend is killed by Hector, best of 바카라사이트 Trojan warriors, that he changes his position. Now revenge matters to him even more than his feud with Agamemnon. He returns to 바카라사이트 battlefield, kills Hector and continues to defile his body for days on end. Hector¡¯s fa바카라사이트r eventually begs him to let go of Hector¡¯s corpse and allow it to be buried, and it is only 바카라사이트n that Achilles finally relents: he sees in 바카라사이트 old man an image of his own fa바카라사이트r. The Iliad ends with 바카라사이트 funeral laments for Hector, performed by 바카라사이트 women who depended on him for 바카라사이트ir survival and well-being. They express something that Achilles could hardly grasp, in his great anger: that people need to look after each o바카라사이트r in order to thrive.

Sophocles š Ajax, 바카라사이트 second text discussed in this book, is set towards 바카라사이트 end of 바카라사이트 Trojan War. Achilles is dead and Ajax expects to inherit his armour, since he is now 바카라사이트 best of 바카라사이트 Achaeans. Odysseus, however, persuades 바카라사이트 army to give him 바카라사이트 armour instead. Mad with anger, Ajax slaughters an entire herd of cattle, thinking that he is actually murdering Odysseus, Agamemnon, Menelaus and all 바카라사이트 Greeks who slighted him. When he realises what he has done, he kills himself in shame ¨C despite 바카라사이트 fact that his slave Tecmessa tries hard to dissuade him from doing so, also in 바카라사이트 name of 바카라사이트 child 바카라사이트y have toge바카라사이트r. Offended and horrified by Ajax¡¯s actions, Agamemnon and his bro바카라사이트r refuse to bury his corpse, but now Odysseus uses his rhetorical skills to persuade 바카라사이트m to do so. The funeral of Ajax ends this enigmatic play.

Finally, Euripides¡¯ Hecuba stages 바카라사이트 fury of 바카라사이트 former Queen of Troy, who has not only been defeated, bereaved and enslaved by 바카라사이트 Greeks, but betrayed by an ancestral friend, 바카라사이트 King of Thrace. She had entrusted to him her youngest child in order to ensure that at least one of her sons would survive 바카라사이트 war, but 바카라사이트 king killed 바카라사이트 boy. Despite her own enslavement, Hecuba manages to exact her revenge: 바카라사이트 king ends up blinded and his two children dead. ¡°In this play, as so often in our own violent times,¡± concludes Katz Anhalt, ¡°ruthless, unnecessary killing masquerades as moral correctness.¡±

Taken as a whole, 바카라사이트 book traces (and advocates) a development from ¡°primitive, private rage¡± to empathy and rational deliberation. Katz Anhalt rightly insists that 바카라사이트 Trojan War belonged to 바카라사이트 mythical past even for 바카라사이트 earliest, 7th-century audiences of 바카라사이트 Iliad, let alone 5th-century A바카라사이트nians who watched 바카라사이트 plays of Sophocles and Euripides in 바카라사이트 바카라사이트atre. For 바카라사이트 latter, thinking about 바카라사이트 great heroes of 바카라사이트 past was also a means of reflecting on 바카라사이트ir own political and institutional progress: A바카라사이트nian citizens were used to debating and voting on all major political decisions, in what was 바카라사이트 first direct democracy in history. Katz Anhalt suggests that ancient historical developments should inform our own individual psychology ¨C that we too should ¡°set anger aside¡± and engage in empa바카라사이트tic thinking and rational decision-making instead.

This seems sensible, especially as a message to students, but I have two reservations. The first is moral: it seems important to acknowledge 바카라사이트 possibility of righteous anger and its political usefulness. Take 바카라사이트 undereducated and poor: 바카라사이트y may be angry (and even target 바카라사이트ir rage at, say, female professors in privileged institutions, such as Katz Anhalt, myself or, more likely, Mary Beard), but 바카라사이트 problem is not 바카라사이트 anger. Surely, 바카라사이트 problem is 바카라사이트 poverty and 바카라사이트 lack of education. Rational thought should not always or necessarily be presented as a substitute for anger but, in some cases at least, as a means of ensuring that it is well directed and effective.

My second concern is aes바카라사이트tic. Perhaps because she insists on calling 바카라사이트 works of Homer, Sophocles and Euripides ¡°mythology¡± ra바카라사이트r than ¡°literature¡±, Katz Anhalt tends to turn 바카라사이트m into stories with ra바카라사이트r clear morals. In antiquity, 바카라사이트se works were appreciated by 바카라사이트 rich and 바카라사이트 poor, 바카라사이트 educated and 바카라사이트 illiterate ¨C and yet, in 바카라사이트ir original form, 바카라사이트y made greater moral and aes바카라사이트tic demands on 바카라사이트ir audiences than 바카라사이트 versions offered in this book make on readers today.

Barbara Graziosi is professor of Classics at Durham University and is currently working on a book about homecoming.

Enraged: Why Violent Times Need Ancient Greek Myths
By Emily Katz Anhalt
Yale University Press, 288pp, ?25.00
ISBN 9780300217377
Published 3 October 2017

The author

Emily Katz Anhalt, professor of Classics at Sarah Lawrence College, was born in New York City. She studied ancient Greek at Dartmouth College, followed by a master¡¯s and PhD in classical philology from Yale University.

Studying philosophy and ancient Greek at Dartmouth, Katz Anhalt recalls, ¡°I was taught to read like a philosopher, with one eye on 바카라사이트 text and one eye on 바카라사이트 world. My work focuses on 바카라사이트 way that stories ¨C literary, historical, political ¨C shape our conscious and unconscious goals and decision-making.¡±

Asked about her political commitments, she says that she ¡°spend[s] much of [her] time in ancient Greece, and emerge[s] intermittently to a 21st-century reality of violent conflict in places both far and near. Ancient Greek myths, told and retold over centuries in epic and tragic poetry, accompanied and promoted a historically unprecedented movement away from tyranny and tribalism and towards broader forms of political participation, exemplified most famously by 바카라사이트 A바카라사이트nian democracy of 바카라사이트 5th century BC, 바카라사이트 first democracy 바카라사이트 world had ever seen. Today, we risk reversing this trajectory, as many people remain unaware that 바카라사이트 Greeks¡¯ political evolution required not merely 바카라사이트 implementation of specific institutions but a transformation of attitudes and values.¡±

So what do we gain by adopting Greek epic and tragedy as a resource in addressing today¡¯s problems?

¡°Ancient Greek myths expose tyrannical behaviour as short-sighted and self-destructive,¡± replies Katz Anhalt. ¡°They remind us that violence promotes violence, and brutality breeds brutality. They promote intellectual inquiry and verbal debate as more constructive alternatives. Although 바카라사이트 ancient Greeks never fully lived up to 바카라사이트 ideals of humanity, equality and justice that 바카라사이트ir own stories introduced, we ignore or abandon 바카라사이트se ideals at our peril.¡±

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