THE TALKING GREEKS PDF
Preview THE TALKING GREEKS
THE TALKING GREEKS Whenconsideringthequestionofwhatmakesushuman,theancient Greeks provided numerous suggestions. This book argues that the definingcriterionintheHellenicworld,however,wasthemostobvi- ousone:speech.Itexploreshowitwasthecapacityforauthoritative speechwhichwasheldtoseparatehumansfromotheranimals,gods fromhumans,menfromwomen,Greeksfromnon-Greeks,citizens from slaves, and the mundane from the heroic. John Heath illus- trateshowHomer’sepicstracethedevelopmentofimmatureyoung men into adults managing speech in entirely human ways and how inAeschylus’Oresteiaonlyhumanspeechcandisentangleman,beast, and god. Plato’s Dialogues are shown to reveal the consequences of Socraticallyimposedsilence.WithitsexaminationoftheGreekfocus onspeech,animalization,andstatus,thisbookoffersnewreadingsof keytextsandprovidessignificantinsightsintotheGreekapproachto understandingourworld. john heathisProfessorofClassicsatSantaClaraUniversity.Heis theauthorofnumerousarticlesonLatinandGreekliterature,myth andculture.HispreviouspublicationsincludeActaeon,theUnman- nerlyIntruder(1992),WhoKilledHomer?(withVictorDavisHanson, 1998;revisededition,2001)andBonfireoftheHumanities(withVictor DavisHansonandBruceThornton,2001). THE TALKING GREEKS Speech, Animals, and the Other in Homer, Aeschylus, and Plato JOHN HEATH SantaClaraUniversity cambridge university press Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge cb2 2ru, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridage.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521832649 © John Heath 2005 This book is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published in print format 2005 isbn-13 978-0-511-11146-4 eBook (NetLibrary) isbn-10 0-511-11146-0 eBook (NetLibrary) isbn-13 978-0-521-83264-9 hardback isbn-10 0-521-83264-0 hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this book, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Contents Prefaceandacknowledgments pagevi Introduction 1 part i speech, animals, and human status in homer 1 Bellowinglikeabull:HumansandotheranimalsinHomer 39 2 Controllinglanguage:Telemachuslearnstospeak 79 3 Talkingthroughtheheroiccode:Achilleslearnstotelltales 119 part ii listening for the other in classical greece 4 Makingadifference:ThesilenceofOtherness 171 part iii speech, animals, and human status in classical athens 5 Disentanglingthebeast:Humansandotheranimalsinthe Oresteia 215 6 Socraticsilence:TheshameoftheAthenians 259 Epilogue 315 Bibliography 334 Index 387 v Preface and acknowledgments I wrote most of this book over the past seven summers. Each fall I have returnedtoclasses,wherethetolerantsmilesandglazedeyesofmyfreshmen students quickly reminded me that the relevance of the Greeks can easily be lost on the uninitiated – and the scholar. I am fortunate to have spent myacademiclifeteachingbrightundergraduateswho,withalittlecoaxing (okay–sometimeswithalotofcoaxing),haveoftenjoinedmeinexploring theseancienttexts.Ithankthem. More pragmatically, I am grateful to two classical journals for permis- siontopublishhererevisedversionsofpreviouslypublishedarticles.Partof Chapter2appearedas“Telemachuspepnumenos:Growingintoanepithet,” inMnemosyne54(2001)129–57.Chapter5islargelybasedon“Disentangling the beast: Humans and other animals in Aeschylus’ Oresteia,” in JHS 119 (1999)17–47.Theeditorsandanonymousrefereesinvolvedinthesepubli- cationswereextremelyhelpful.SantaClaraUniversitygenerouslyawarded twoofmystudentssummergrantstocheckreferencesandhelpcreatethe index.IammuchindebtedtotheUniversityandespeciallytoTomGarvey andChristineLechelt. Severalcolleaguesandfriendshaveofferedperceptiveinsightsonindivid- ual chapters: Walter Englert, Michelle McKenna, Helen Moritz, William Prior, and Gail Blumberg. Nora Chapman, Mark Edwards, and Victor Hanson read the entire manuscript when it was still a rather unattractive adolescent. Lisa Adams loaned her acumen and acute editorial eye to the penultimate draft. I cannot thank them enough for their many invalu- ablecomments,queries,andsuggestions.Ifthisbookisstillungainly,itis not their fault. The anonymous readers for the press were open-minded, insightful, and especially helpful in convincing me to eliminate several polemicaldivagationsofwhichIhadgrownunhealthilyfond.Tomyedi- tor at Cambridge, Michael Sharp, I feel a particular debt of gratitude for having faith in the intellectual merits of what first crossed his desk as a slightlygrumpyanalysisof“animalsandtheOther”inancientGreece. vi Prefaceandacknowledgments vii Finally,mygreatestdebtistoEmma,whoarrivedjustwhenIwasstarting this book. Her intelligence and optimism are constant sources of inspira- tion,aswellasproofthathumannatureisnotdeterminedentirelybygenes. ItwouldalsobeunforgivableformenottoacknowledgewithaffectionMel andAndi,whosejoyfullivesandunhappyfateshaveservedasanimpetus for my reflection on the duties we have to all conscious creatures, both articulateandsilent. Introduction The thesis of this book is embarrassingly unsophisticated: humans speak; other animals don’t. This zoological platitude formed the basis – indeed, themotivation–formuchoftheancientGreeks’profoundandinfluential explorationofwhatitmeanstobehuman. Ithaslongbeenfoundusefulinbothliteraryandanthropologicalstudies toquoteoutofcontextLe´vi-Strauss’famousobservation(hewascritiquing totemism)thatanimalsarechosentoconveycertainideasnotbecausethey are good to eat, but because they are good to think with.1 But for the agrarianGreeks,whosehandsweredirtyfromtheearthandanimalsthey worked with and struggled against every day, animals were also good to thinkabout.TheGreekswerehard-workingpragmatistsaswellasourintel- lectualandculturalforebears.Theywerefarmers,andtheirunderstanding of human nature and animals was shaped by very different “formative” experiencesthanthoseofmostofuswhostudythem.TotakewhatIhope isanextremeexample,myownchildhoodfamiliaritywithanimalsinthe suburbs of Los Angeles was limited to a series of family basset-hounds (not exactly Laconian hunting dogs), my sister’s pet rat, and a blood- sucking half-moon parrot named Socrates, whom my mother, like the Athenianmob2,400yearsbefore,finallyshippedofftoHadeswithatainted beverage. In the United States, where family farmers are no longer “statistically relevant”–wheretherearemoreprisoninmatesthanfull-timefarmersof any kind, and where ranchers are a dying breed2 – most of us regularly encounter animals only as fuzzy house companions or on our plates. In this,weareverymuchunliketheancientGreekswereadandwriteabout. Few of them could afford to feed a mouth that did not help put food 1 Le´vi-Strauss(1969)162;seeLloyd(1983)8n.7. 2 Hanson(1996)xvi;Schlosser(2001)8with278n.8,133–47.Itissoberingtorememberthatnotuntil 1910didtheUnitedStateshavemoreindustriallaborersthanfarmworkers.Arecentsurveyshowed thatmanyofusspendmorethan95percentofourlivesindoors;Bekoff(2002)139. 1
Description:The list of books you might like
