literary analysis
For Women in Ancient Societies, we have to read a lot of critical writing along with our primary stuff. That's great for me because it gives me a lot of exposure to the literature of a field that I'm really interested in.
Thing is, it's not entirely a history class. It's sort of a mishmash history/classics class that is partly focused on historical examinations of women's lives and positions in ancient Greece and Rome, and partly on the representation of women in classical literature (epic, lyric poetry, drama, etc). Naturally I am more inclined towards the former approach, but I appreciate that it's so all-encompassing because it is and will continue to give me a tremendous exposure to important classical literature, and I absolutely LOVE said literature. I read Homer and my heart goes all aflutter at the beauty of it; I think Sappho's poetry, though sadly fragmented, is still beautiful; and y'all know from the class I took last fall how much I love Athenian tragedy and comedy.
But I'm not much into the scholarship written about said literature - or indeed about any literature. I'm sitting here reading this article about Sappho that I need to finish for tomorrow, and the author is picking apart her use of sound (which is difficult to follow, since I'm not yet skilled enough to read the Greek, and the translation of course doesn't use sound in the same way) and repetition and stuff, and what this represents. And I'm sitting here thinking - why does this matter? Why is it important? Who cares if Sappho says eraton in line 17 that echoes the eratai of line 4? It's funny. I love picking apart literature myself, because I love literature period. I like to read books and see things in them and write papers about the meanings that I see, but truthfully I couldn't care less about what anyone else sees in them. I know this seems like a shallow thing to say. But I suppose to me it doesn't matter. Literature is so subjective. I mean, yes, history is too. Historians are on this never-ending quest for answers that they know they will never find. But I suppose I see a deeper understanding being reached constantly by history, whereas literature is kind of more exclusive. Are you looking for a greater understanding of something? What is it? Is it philosophical? Historical? I mean, the only perspective you are getting is that of the people who write these books. (And I know, in a sense, the only perspective a historian is getting is that of the author of her sources, but the point is the sources are clues, not the final word on things.) Looking at Sappho's poetry will obviously help illuminate for the historian the situation of women in archaic Greece, but that's only one dimension of it. There are other sources out there too, other records, other writings, that will eventually lead to more possible "answers." What is being looked for in the study of literature? Is there a goal, other than dissecting something as much as one can?
I know I am looking at this from a narrow perspective. I think my goal in my academic pursuits has always been to gain a greater understanding of human society of the past and present, and I've found history to be a truly ideal path to that understanding, in a way no other discipline has opened my eyes. (Sociology came close, but I found something missing, and I also found the excess of theory not to be particularly helpful. The best field in the world is social history. What a wonderful marriage of disciplines!) I suppose I'm glad I never convinced myself I should be an English major simply for the reason that I love literature; I could well have done that. I mean, not to diss any lit/English majors on the friends list (I know there are at least one or two), because I'm sure people will ask me the same questions I'm pondering about history. But this all just really struck me while reading the Sappho articles. I'd much rather read historical papers using Sappho as a source than literary analyses of her writing. I'll analyze and appreciate her writing on my own, thank you.
PS: I was so proud of myself. This article excerpted passages from a French author, untranslated, and I was able to read them with ease! I also think that I am not as bad at Greek as I've been fearing, because I was able to parse a lot of the Greek passages in there and if my vocabulary were broader, I might be starting to actually read that too...
Thing is, it's not entirely a history class. It's sort of a mishmash history/classics class that is partly focused on historical examinations of women's lives and positions in ancient Greece and Rome, and partly on the representation of women in classical literature (epic, lyric poetry, drama, etc). Naturally I am more inclined towards the former approach, but I appreciate that it's so all-encompassing because it is and will continue to give me a tremendous exposure to important classical literature, and I absolutely LOVE said literature. I read Homer and my heart goes all aflutter at the beauty of it; I think Sappho's poetry, though sadly fragmented, is still beautiful; and y'all know from the class I took last fall how much I love Athenian tragedy and comedy.
But I'm not much into the scholarship written about said literature - or indeed about any literature. I'm sitting here reading this article about Sappho that I need to finish for tomorrow, and the author is picking apart her use of sound (which is difficult to follow, since I'm not yet skilled enough to read the Greek, and the translation of course doesn't use sound in the same way) and repetition and stuff, and what this represents. And I'm sitting here thinking - why does this matter? Why is it important? Who cares if Sappho says eraton in line 17 that echoes the eratai of line 4? It's funny. I love picking apart literature myself, because I love literature period. I like to read books and see things in them and write papers about the meanings that I see, but truthfully I couldn't care less about what anyone else sees in them. I know this seems like a shallow thing to say. But I suppose to me it doesn't matter. Literature is so subjective. I mean, yes, history is too. Historians are on this never-ending quest for answers that they know they will never find. But I suppose I see a deeper understanding being reached constantly by history, whereas literature is kind of more exclusive. Are you looking for a greater understanding of something? What is it? Is it philosophical? Historical? I mean, the only perspective you are getting is that of the people who write these books. (And I know, in a sense, the only perspective a historian is getting is that of the author of her sources, but the point is the sources are clues, not the final word on things.) Looking at Sappho's poetry will obviously help illuminate for the historian the situation of women in archaic Greece, but that's only one dimension of it. There are other sources out there too, other records, other writings, that will eventually lead to more possible "answers." What is being looked for in the study of literature? Is there a goal, other than dissecting something as much as one can?
I know I am looking at this from a narrow perspective. I think my goal in my academic pursuits has always been to gain a greater understanding of human society of the past and present, and I've found history to be a truly ideal path to that understanding, in a way no other discipline has opened my eyes. (Sociology came close, but I found something missing, and I also found the excess of theory not to be particularly helpful. The best field in the world is social history. What a wonderful marriage of disciplines!) I suppose I'm glad I never convinced myself I should be an English major simply for the reason that I love literature; I could well have done that. I mean, not to diss any lit/English majors on the friends list (I know there are at least one or two), because I'm sure people will ask me the same questions I'm pondering about history. But this all just really struck me while reading the Sappho articles. I'd much rather read historical papers using Sappho as a source than literary analyses of her writing. I'll analyze and appreciate her writing on my own, thank you.
PS: I was so proud of myself. This article excerpted passages from a French author, untranslated, and I was able to read them with ease! I also think that I am not as bad at Greek as I've been fearing, because I was able to parse a lot of the Greek passages in there and if my vocabulary were broader, I might be starting to actually read that too...