December 8, 2009 by tonibadnall
This lecture was slightly truncated due to the need to perform a SET/SEM review – a student evaluation of the module. I’ve yet to process the results, but most of the criticism seems at first glance to be constructive.
We looked at the remained of the Trojan myth, from the end of the Iliad to the departure of the Greeks for home at the end of the war. This gave an opportunity to work with some lesser-known texts, namely the fragments of the Epic Cycle, which often get mentioned in various scholarly works, but don’t often get studied. Major points of interest were the death of Achilles and the contest for his arms, the Trojan horse and the sack, and the assignment of the captives.
What came out most in the course of this was the hubris of the victors. Rape, arson and pillage are about par for the course in the sack of a city, but the Greeks were responsible for several outrages against the gods – Neoptolemus’ murder of Priam at the altar of Zeus and Ajax’s rape of Cassandra in the temple of Athena – that were inexcusable even by their victory. This transgression is continued by the infanticide of Astyanax and the sacrifice of Polyxena, and the resulting wrath of the gods, particularly Athena, sets the scene for the Nostoi, or ‘return stories’.
Tags: Greek gods, Greek literature, Greek myth, human sacrifice, teaching, Trojan War
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December 8, 2009 by tonibadnall
Incest
Greek myth (and perhaps even more so Roman, if we read Ovid) was full of intra-familial unions. This deserves comment, as the incest taboo is one of the most fundamental in just about any society. Even before the genetic problems of such intercourse became common knowledge, children of incest appear to have been considered in some way transgressive. This seems to have been one of the areas by which myth demonstrated, by means of negative exempla, the norms of human behaviour.
One group looked at father/daughter incest, and the myth of Thyestes and Pelopia. In some sources, Thyestes raped his daughter, unaware of who she was. In others, he received an oracle that he could avenge himself on his brother Atreus if he got a son (Aegisthus) on her, and another (in Hyginus) suggests she consented to this out of a sense of duty. Even so, the story ends with her killing herself when her son’s parentage is discovered, suggesting that not even the will of the gods can override the shame of such an act.
The second group looked at mother/son unions, and the myth of Oedipus is the obvious paradigm for this. Do we believe in Freud’s Oedipus complex? And why is there so much more ancient literature on this myth than other tales of incest? Have we sanctified and valorised the mother-son bond as a result of Western Catholicism? There are interesting parallels in the primordial myths, not only of Greece, but also of other cultures – mother/son intercourse tends to be the preserve of the early gods – Oedipus seems in that respect to transgress into the divine sphere.
The last group examined brother/sister incest, with the myth of the Aeolids. The Odyssey suggests the children of Aeolus were all happily married to each other; later versions highlight Macareus and Canace’s illicit affair, Aeolus’ wrath, and her suicide. What is allowable in the world of the ‘apologoi’ is less so in other genres. But again, cf. Zeus and Hera, a model picked up by the Ptolemies in Hellenistic Egypt. Mortals should not emulate the gods – where they do so, however unwittingly, it leads to death and the subversion, rather than continuation, of the oikos.
Tags: gender, Greek gods, Greek literature, Greek myth, incest, mythological theory, Oedipus, taboo, teaching
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December 8, 2009 by tonibadnall
Ok, I know it’s been a long time since I posted, even on my teaching pages. The first semester of an academic job is…a bit busy. And given no-one had commented on these posts, I had (wrongly) assumed students weren’t using it. This proved a bit of a misconception, as the recent SET/SEM review of this module came back with the result that students found this blog a helpful resource, and regretted there wasn’t more discussion here. Only 1 thing to say to that, guys – someone has to make the first comment! If you don’t, no-one else will, and it only takes 1 person to start a discussion…
Lecture 7 kicked off the myth of the Trojan War, tracing its events from the ‘plan of Zeus’ and the marriage of Thetis to the death of Hector at the end of the Iliad. That’s a lot of material, and the need to get through it all exposed one of the weaknesses of this module. Next time, less narrative, more detailed discussion. The build-up to the war is perhaps the most interesting aspect – you get a real sense of the heroic age hurtling towards Armageddon as Zeus decides to depopulate the earth and make his daughter famous.
The lecture looked at the Judgement of Paris and Helen’s role in the affair – was she a passive token of exchange, or an active seducee? Several representations of Helen were looked at, as lascivious adulteress, innocent victim, and regretful sinner. In many versions (Aeschylus and Euripides especially) she is connected linguistically or by imagery to Iphigenia, so the sacrifice at the heart of the embarkation also played a major role in the discussion. The conflict of the Iliad could probably have done with a lecture of its own, as there is a lot there which is hugely influential on the later tradition.
What does all this mean? Well, some major points did come out, which perhaps should have been elaborated more. The massive East vs. West conflict is important, especially in fifth-century depictions, and is still relevant to the modern day. There is a sense that combining the two spheres is disastrous, and this also holds true on another level – the myth functions to separate the spheres of gods and mortals. It is the end of the age of the demigods, for good or ill. The next lectures will aim to build on that sense of ‘closure’.
Tags: Greek gods, Greek literature, Greek myth, taboo, teaching, Trojan War
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November 12, 2009 by tonibadnall
One of the bloodiest chapters in Greek mythology, this myth cycle seems to be all about taboos and what happens when you violate them: cannibalism, incest, violence, sexual transgression. Parallels can be drawn with the House of Labdacus in the Theban Cycle – no wonder Froma Zeitlin though Argos and Thebes functioned as ‘other’ places set against Athens on the tragic stage.
Oe thing that comes out is the building cycle of transgressions as the myth progresses through its generations – you have Tantalus’ serving of Pelops at the banquet of the gods, and any retaliation of Pelops against his father instead seems displaced onto his father-in-law, Oenomaus, in his fatal chariot race. It’s in the next generation, though, that things get really interesting – and really grisly. Pelops’ own sons, Atreus and Thyestes, turn first on their brother Chrysippus, then on each other. Agamemnon and Menelaus, the heroes of the Trojan War, and Aegisthus, the cousin who brings Agamemnon down, are begotten amidst treachery (the golden lamb), adultery, infanticide and cannibalism of Atreus against Thyestes’ sons, and incest in the pursuit of vengeance.
If this is the background against which the Trojan War is set, is it any wonder that Helen ran off with Paris? That Clytemnestra took up with Aegisthus when Agamemnon, who she claims in Euripides (IA) killed her husband and child and raped her, sacrificed their daughter at Aulis?
Nobody seems right or wrong in this myth – even Orestes, who is told to avenge his father on his mother, doesn’t exactly come up smelling of roses (epsecially in later, Euripidean versions). Eloping with his cousin Hermione after killing her husband, he is eventually killed by a snakebite and the line wiped out by the Heraclids. As in the Theban Cycle, the ancestral curse on the household eventually expunges itself in the destruction of the House.
Tags: ancestral guilt, Euripides, Greek literature, Greek myth, House of Atreus, human sacrifice, taboo, teaching, transgression
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November 5, 2009 by tonibadnall
Human Sacrifice
In the second of our ‘thematic’ seminars, we looked at myths of human sacrifice in Greek literature. This was again divided into 3 elements, on which each group of students had to make a presentation: the issue of virgin sacrifice (studying Iphigenia, Polyxena, and Macaria); ‘customary’ sacrifice (e.g. the sacrifice of Greeks by the Taurians); and masculine self-sacrifice (Menoeceus). As a theoretical basis, students were encouraged to use Burkert’s Homo Necans, though in my session at least, few took on board his analysis for anything other than a description of Greek sacrificial ritual against which to compare the sacrifice of human beings.
By far the most interesting discussion came from comparing the first and the last issues – particularly in the idea of consent. What does it mean to sacrifice yourself, rather than to be sacrificed? Comparisons with soldiers in battle can be made, particularly in the case of Menoeceus, but also with Iphigenia in Euripides’ IA (but not, interestingly, IT) and Macaria. Representation of the sacrificial virgin similarly changes over time, from Iphigenia trussed up like an animal in Aeschylus, to her willing death at the end of Euripides’ career, bringing her into line with his other extant sacrificial virgins of both sexes.
But this still leaves Iphigenia in the IT, and her sacrifice of Greek sailors in ‘revenge’ for the Greeks’ sacrifice of her…and it is interesting that in Herodotus, the goddess to whom these Greeks are sacrificed is said to be Iphigenia herself…
An interesting argument was had towards the end on the relative ‘value’ of sacrificial victims, particularly Iphigenia vs. Polyxena. Some students seemed to think that Polyxena could be easily killed because she was a slave, whereas Iphigenia’s sacrifice had value because she was a princess. But I wonder, does this not defeat the object of sacrifice in the first place? It is not a ’sacrifice’ unless something meaningful is given up…this opened the door for discussion of Polyxena’s ‘meaning’, both to her own people and to the Greeks, and the status and value of other victims.
Tags: Burkert, Euripides, Greek literature, Greek myth, Herodotus, human sacrifice, mythological theory, teaching
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November 5, 2009 by tonibadnall
This lecture continued our exploration of the House of Labdacus, from the death of Oedipus to the sack of Thebes by the Epigonoi. I wanted to start to do more with this course this week, moving away from a straightforward narrative and identification of themes to a more detailed explanation of the representation of the myth in various texts, and to think about why it might have been manipulated in these ways – but without just giving the answers to the students (never an easy task!).
Yet even on its most superficial reading, the myth still makes some interesting points. For example, in the epic Thebaid, Oedipus curses his sons because they, like he, violated some sort of taboo – this contrasts markedly with the expression of the curse in tragedy, which seems to occur simply because they mistreated him, and may show the hero as remaining the transgressive character he appears in Sophocles’ OT.
The violation of taboos and the transgression of social norms seems to lie at the heart of this myth – even taking aside the violation of divine imperative, crossing of gender boundaries, parricide and incest of the last lecture, we see the cycle continuing in curses, treason against one’s fatherland, fratricide, desecration of the dead, violation of the will of the gods and the demands of the state, multiple suicides, vengeance, and matricide in the second half of the myth. If myths are, as Csapo (2005) states, representative of social ideologies, norms of behaviour must be defined in this myth through the exploration of their extreme opposites.
Tags: Greek literature, Greek myth, mythological theory, Oedipus, taboo, teaching, Thebes
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October 21, 2009 by tonibadnall
Leading on from the story of Heracles in last week’s lecture, this session looked at the beginnings of the story of Thebes – it’s a big enough topic that it has 2 lectures devoted to it: this one, which covered the foundation of the city to the death of Oedipus, and one to follow next week, on the Seven against Thebes to the razing of the city by the Epigonoi.
Oddly enough, the character that students seemed to associate most with Thebes was Theseus, rather than Oedipus. But it was easy enough to lead from that into the main discussion by looking at the opposition between Thebes and Athens; the transgressive House of Labdacus and Theseus as the hero who rights their wrongs (apparent also in Euripides’ Heracles, set in Thebes).
What characterises the Theban line seems to be this issue of transgression, from Cadmus’ slaying of the dragon of Ares (for which expiation is demanded in Euripides’ Phoenician Women) to the mutual murder of the sons of Oedipus. Zeitlin’s (1990) theory of Thebes as the ‘other’ space on the Athenian stage is a good lens through which to view this tendency towards transgression, but although the myth has mostly survived in tragedy, this doesn’t fully explain the use of the theme in epic or other genres.
There seems to be a layering of meaning as the myth develops in the Classical period – not least because there may be 2 different traditions at work here (Cadmus as the founder of Thebes/Amphion and Zethos as the builders of its walls). Folkloric elements (Edmunds 1985) come through and are juxtaposed with the function of the topos in the Athenian psyche. Yet trying to narrate the myth makes it seem somehow simplistic – next week, I think I may try some more detailed textual comparison with the class.
Tags: ambiguity, Greek literature, Greek myth, Oedipus, performance, Thebes
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October 20, 2009 by tonibadnall
Mortals & Immortals
The seminars in this course are differentiated from the formal lectures, in that students gather in small groups to discuss a mythological theme, rather than learn about a particular myth. Each group is sub-divided into three presentation groups, who are expected to research ahead before the session and produce a presentation on one aspect of this theme, which is then discussed by the class.
There are 5 of these sessions, and the first looked at the different kinds of relationship that existed in myth between gods and humans. Each presentation group studied a different kind of relationship: tutorial relationships (focusing on representations of Odysseus and Athena); adversarial relationships (Heracles and Hera); and divine-mortal ‘doubles’ (Iphigenia and Artemis).
Questions to look at included ‘How are gods and mortals represented as interacting?’ ‘What kinds of myths are told about these pairings?’ and ‘What are the results?’
This worked better in some groups than others. Some students clearly knew their primary texts, and could compare myths both intratextually and with other, similar stories. Some quoted verbatim from the secondary literature and made no attempt at exegesis or comparison. All seemed to take away that these are potentially volatile mythical relationships, and not consistently represented across sources – nor, indeed, are these types of relationship mutually exclusive. I think in future I will focus more on the primary sources, with one or two items of ‘general’ bibliography to help students understand some of the theory behind these stories.
Tags: Greek gods, Greek myth, mythological theory
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October 20, 2009 by tonibadnall
Hearcles, the son of Zeus and Alcmena, seemed like a good figure with which to take the course from tales of the gods to tales of heroes, as he bridges the gap between the two. He is thus a fundamentally ambiguous character, and this is what I wanted to get across in the lecture: that his mythology isn’t all black & white, as in Disney’s ‘Hercules’ (which turned out to be most students’ main source for their knowledge of the myth). It was important, as we went through the major details of his life story, to understand the opposition we see in tales of this hero between the figure of Heracles as a culture hero/founding father and Heracles as a brutish barbarian – within the context of other ambiguities in his representation. And, as with all the myths studies in this course, it was important to look at different versions of the myth in literature and why they are privileged in different texts.
The lecture focused on Heracles’ birth, his labours, his amours, and his death. A number of paradoxes emerged, which seem central to our understanding of the hero: the son of Zeus who spends most of his life labouring as a slave; his persecution by Hera when his very name means ‘glory of Hera’; his function as both a dynastic hero and wild-man fighting monsters on the edges of civilisation; the uncertainty of his fate as chthonic hero/Olympian diety; and his hyper-masculinity vs. the issue of gender ambiguity in his myths (i.e., Omphale).
We discussed several possible interpretations of this phenomenon, but I favour Sergent’s (1987) theory: that two parallel traditions of Heracles existed, one of his ‘cultural’ exploits and one of his labours, which were then conflated (perhaps by the epic tradition?). This is consistent with other mythical cycles (e.g. the Trojan War), in which a number of unconnected myths seem to be drawn into the orbit of a famous character or event by subsequent retellings/poets. The result is a fascinating yet confusing figure, who perhaps can only be truly understood (if even then) within the context of each representation.
Tags: ambiguity, gender, Greek literature, Greek myth, Heracles
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October 8, 2009 by tonibadnall
Despite my terror that I wouldn’t have enough material to fill the lecture, this ran more or less to time – I’m thinking I either have to add a bit more in in future, or else try to get the ‘discussion’ elements to run for longer.
Cosmogonic myth can be a slippery concept, but examining the etymology pins it down to something manageable: kosmos (universe) + gignesthai (to be born). Hence, the myth of origins – the Biblical ‘Genesis’ also comes from this Greek root. The best-known account is Hesiod’s Theogony (birth of the gods), which explains how the universe came to be from the beginning to the present day, and it was on this account that the lecture focused.
The aim was that students would come to understand the meaning of cosmogonic myth and grasp the outline of this text, but also become aware of variant versions (i.e., the Homeric Hymns, Plato, Aristophanes), and how their different periods and genres of composition may have affected the myth represented. These questions will become especially important for the comment questions on the exam. Similarly, once the narrative came to focus on the Olympian gods, it was important to understand how & why different texts include different gods in the Olympian pantheon.
Several important elements were identified in this kind of myth: that it was ain aetiology of the universe’s creation, characterised by generational change until a supreme god ends the pattern of succession with an act of violence and cunning. That within this narrative, male and female play distinct roles (violence vs. cunning) resulting in the subordination of the female to the male; and that as the universe becomes more ordered, gods and men become increasingly separate (this relationship will be explored in more depth in the first seminar).
Tags: cosmogony, gender, Greek gods, Greek literature, Greek myth, Hesiod, teaching
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