Quote:
Originally Posted by DMB
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. |
True enough. Society today is a lot different in many ways from what it was in Ancient Greece, but the basic human passions are still the same. The man who today might well shoot his wife if he found her in bed with another man might well have either choked or stabbed her for the same offense in Ancient Greece. The motivation of jealousy and betrayal is the same though the two societies are very different. I'm also reminded of a story I read that I understand is from that time. According to one of their myths the back half of Pegasus fell from the sky and when it landed on the Earth that race known as politicians sprang from it. Though the story is (if I remember correctly) many centuries old we still get what the original writer meant about politicians. Man has changed very little in some ways over the centuries.