Quote:
Originally Posted by anamardoll
Well, I guess we should ask the OP why HE wants to read the classics. I was approaching it from a "broaden my horizons" aspect, but you're right that there are other reasons to read classics. 
But I do think the Greek classics are largely written by the top 'o the pile of that society, for better or worse. Alas, the Greek slaves for the most part weren't able to record their thoughts on a medium that has survived to reach us.
Even things like The Illiad and The Odyssey is written from the POV of the god-children and heroes and generals. Not so much from the POV of the cannon-fodders.  |
I don't think that this is entirely true. For a start, the Iliad and Odyssey weren't initially "written". They were composed and handed down orally for several centuries before they were ever written down. And although society seems to have been stratified at least since the earliest civilisations, these epics (like Beowulf too, as an example from a different culture) appear to have been widely enjoyed in a society where most people were illiterate.
Similarly, the great Greek plays were performed as a part of religious festivals in which everyone participated. I think we have to accept that heroism was thought of as noble within that culture. And the gods were their religion and were seriously worshipped.
Ancient Greek culture appears to us nowadays as quite alien, because what people thought of as important then doesn't necessarily chime with our views now. But the common humanity shines through as well. If we see one of the
Orestes plays, we don't literally believe in the Furies beyond the confines of the play (any more than we probably believe in the ghost of Hamlet's father), but we can appreciate the central problem: his father sacrificed his sister, for which his mother killed his father and then he killed his mother. He needs to be punished for matricide, even though his mother was a murderess.