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A review by brynhammond
Inventing the Barbarian: Greek Self-Definition Through Tragedy by Edith Hall
4.0
Startlingly contemporary, was my impression. Is it that we owe so much to the Greeks, including how to construct a prejudice? Has nothing changed? Or was the author bringing out the relevance?
The age of heroic poetry didn't differentiate its Greeks from its barbarians; only your lineage and your valour mattered; hence evenhanded Homer. Then the Persian War kickstarted Orientalism, and the tragedians of Athens imported current politics into mythological topics.
The Greek thinking was so modern, and at the same time, the parallels with China and its barbarians so apparent (she makes them), that it was quite a strange experience to read this.
It's from 1989, a pioneer work I believe; may be dated -- author has gone on with the subject -- but probably a classic study.
And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
Cavafy, Waiting for the Barbarians
The age of heroic poetry didn't differentiate its Greeks from its barbarians; only your lineage and your valour mattered; hence evenhanded Homer. Then the Persian War kickstarted Orientalism, and the tragedians of Athens imported current politics into mythological topics.
The Greek thinking was so modern, and at the same time, the parallels with China and its barbarians so apparent (she makes them), that it was quite a strange experience to read this.
It's from 1989, a pioneer work I believe; may be dated -- author has gone on with the subject -- but probably a classic study.
And now what shall become of us without any barbarians?
Those people were a kind of solution.
Cavafy, Waiting for the Barbarians