Euripides

Medea (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Euripides (480-406 BCE) was a Greek dramatist, born in Athens. As a youth he was an athlete, winning prizes at Eleusinian and Thesean gymnastic events. After studying philosophy under Anaxagoras (along with his friend Socrates), rhetoric under Prodicus and dabbling in painting, Euripides realized that literature was his forté.

Euripides is identified with theatrical innovations that have profoundly influenced drama down to modern times, especially in the representation of traditional, mythical heroes as ordinary people in extraordinary circumstances. This new approach led him to pioneer developments that later writers adapted to comedy, some of which are characteristic of romance. Yet he also became “the most tragic of poets”,^{[nb 1]} focusing on the inner lives and motives of his characters in a way previously unknown.¹

He wrote some 80 dramas, out of which 19 remain. Medea, Electra, and Trojan Women were performed during his lifetime but his work became increasingly popular after his death. The Bacchae, for instance, was performed in Athens only after he had died.

Euripides is also relevant to contemporary psychiatry and, in particular, depth psychology. His play Heracles (416 BCE) most effectively personifies Madness as the daughter of Heaven and Night, sent to drive Heracles insane:

Madness has mounted her chariot
Groans and tears accompany her
She plies the lash, hell-bent for murder
rage gleaming from her eyes
A Gorgon of the night, and around her
Bristle the hissing heads of a hundred snakes²

Fully versed in the myths and legends that permeated his culture, he was also aware of the Sophists and the early scientists and philosophers like Anaxagoras.³ So Euripides didn’t buy into but, rather, satirized the popular religion of his day. He did believe in the idea of divine providence but was skeptical of many of the religious beliefs and practices that dominated the ancient Greek world.

Put simply, he preferred to find his own answers to questions concerning ultimate truth. As such, he’s been called ’the poet of the Greek enlightenment,’ among a variety of other things by his detractors and admirers.⁴

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¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euripides

² Euripides, cited in Eric Flaum and David Pandy, The Encyclopedia of Mythology: Gods, Heroes, and Legends of the Greeks and Romans, Philadelphia, Courage Books, 1993, p. 99.

³ Peter Burian ” Euripides ” The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome. Ed. Michael Gagarin. © Oxford University Press 2010. The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome: (e-reference edition). Oxford University Press. Toronto Public Library. 25 May 2012 http://www.oxford-greecerome.com/entry?entry=t294.e458

⁴ Op. cit. (en.wikipedia.org)

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T. S. Eliot

T. S. Eliot, photographed one Sunday afternoon in 1923 by Lady Ottoline Morrell (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

T. S. Eliot (Thomas Stearns Eliot 1888-1965) was a British poet and writer born in St. Louis, USA. He studied at Harvard and Paris and after a year at Oxford decided to remain in the UK, as advised by Ezra Pound. He held teaching and banking jobs before being hired as the director of Faber Books.

His first book of poetry, “Prufrock and Other Observations” (1917) was published with Pound’s backing. Bertrand Russel introduced it to the Bloomsbury Circle. Next came “The Waste Land” (1922) and “The Hollow Men” (1925). Perhaps no one quite knows the meaning of this latter poem, which ends with a bleak vision of the world ending “not with a bang but a whimper.” A cold and morbid view, it nonetheless carries a somewhat disjointed sense of fascination.

Later works by Eliot portray warmer, Christian themes. By the time of “Ash Wednesday,” he had joined the so-called ‘Anglo-Catholic’ Church in England, finding new spiritual meaning to fill a former void. “Ash Wednesday” portrays the ideal human as a humble servant of the divine instead of a disturbed or disillusioned seeker suspended in a chilling fantasy.

Eliot received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1948.

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Frankenstein

Steel engraving (993 x 71mm) for frontispiece to the revised edition of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley, published by Colburn and Bentley, London 1831. The novel was first published in 1818. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Frankenstein (Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus) is Mary Shelley‘s novel of 1818 in which a Baron Frankenstein creates a horrible monster by reassembling and electrifying body parts from exhumed cadavers. The monster is never called ‘Frankenstein’ in the book but the idea stuck.

Apparently Mary Shelley, the wife of the poet Percy Shelley, awoke one morning after dreaming of the unwritten novel. She quickly wrote the plot and opening pages. The story has been set to several films, the most notable starring Boris Karloff in Frankenstein (1931).

Ultimately Frankenstein is a tragedy as the monster eventually destroys its creator. Symbolically, the Frankenstein monster represents anyone who, for all intents and purposes, seems ‘dead,’ callous and uncaring.

Like all archetypal images, however, we’d do well to remember that, in most cases, they represent aspects of real people. As such most people are far more complicated, valuable, and redeemable than a mere caricature. They may seem to be totally evil, but in some instances they can still behave ethically. In a few instances of psychopathology (and evil), however, some individuals appear to become totally engulfed by archetypal forces (or demons).

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Hubris

Hubris by Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos (ClintJCL) via Flickr

Hubris (Greek: hybris) This term, often used in literary criticism, denotes haughtiness, arrogance or overconfidence usually resulting in some sort of personal disaster.

The term has a complex history in ancient Greek culture. And the idea crops up in the Old Testament Proverbs, “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.”¹

In the 20th and 21st centuries the idea of hubris has been explained through the psychological concept of the unconscious. For instance, most of us have probably heard of the idea that some criminals, at some level, want to get caught.

So they leave obvious clues or do things that appear hard to understand (like a wealthy Hollywood celebrity shoplifting in a store that has security cameras, or an important politician tweeting profane things).

However, they do this unconsciously, so the theory goes, because they actually want to face their unresolved issues and come back to their true selves and feelings. And getting caught in a silly, shameful thing is a surefire way of being humbled and brought back to oneself.

Theological explanations concerning why bad things happen to people, even seemingly good people, usually refer to God testing, strengthening or purifying us for everlasting life in heaven.

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¹ http://bible.cc/proverbs/16-18.htm

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Hermann Hesse

Hermann-Hesse-Monument in Calw via Wikipedia

Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) was a former bookseller and antiquary, born in Württemberg, who became an influential writer and friend of the Swiss psychiartrist Carl Jung.

Hesse’s themes are mostly about his understanding of psychological and spiritual development, outlining how intertwining individual paths play off against and influence one another.

His novels Steppenwolf and Demian deal with Jung’s idea of the shadow. Narcissus and Goldmund contrasts the creative free spirit with the structured cleric. Siddhartha is based on the life of the Buddha. The Glass Bead Game portrays a game in which parallel themes from mathematics, the arts and philosophy creatively connect.

The Chilean diplomat Miguel Serrano says that he, Carl Jung and Hermann Hesse belonged to an “inner circle” of Gnostic-style knowers.¹ If Serrano is implying, as seems to be the case, that only three people would belong to an exclusive “inner circle,” this would indicate a kind of underdeveloped, self-aggrandized mysticism. Surely the ordinary person can be just as, if not more, mystically inclined than these public men of letters.

Hesse, being German, had to deal with the Nazi scourge in one way or another. His initial approach was to detach himself from politics, but it’s clear that he was  against the Nazis. His third wife was, in fact, Jewish. And he spoke out against the dark regime long before he married her. Hesse’s publications came to be banned by the Nazis.²

He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946.

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¹ http://www.amazon.com/C-G-Hermann-Hesse-Miguel-Serrano/dp/3856305580

² http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermann_Hesse#Later_life_and_death

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Iago

Shakespeare's Globe by Kieran Lynam via Flickr

Iago is William Shakespeare‘s devilishly clever ‘sour grapes’ character in the tragic play Othello.

Passed over for a promotion in the Venetian army, Iago gets insanely jealous of anyone with anything and plots and schemes his chilling revenge through lies and treachery.

Through his deceits he exemplifies intelligent evil at its worst.

After manipulatively tricking Othello into murdering his wife, Desdemona, Iago is finally discovered and, in the compelling BBC TV production of the play, goes to his grisly fate cackling with maniacal glee. Iago is content with the knowledge that his hideous revenge has been secured, despite his captor Lodovico’s decree, The time, the place, the torture,—O, enforce it!

The Bard adds:

It is interesting that, while we learn about Iago’s “fate,” we do not actually see him punished (on stage, that is) which Shakespeare could have easily arranged (given the number of fights and deaths in the play). So, in one sense, evil incarnate goes unpunished before our eyes. The question, of course, remains–why?? » See in context

Ari Moore adds:

I disagree that Iago was “evil” – there are numerous allusions in the play to his being impotent, ferociously intimidated by what he believed was Othello’s superior sexual prowess. I don’t know if that makes him “evil” so much as misguided and unable to deal with life in a healthy way. » See in context

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Kerouac, Jack

Kerouac, Jack » Beatnik, Burroughs (William S.)

Keats, John

Nymans Garden-Ode to a Grecian Urn. A daffodil crowded English garden, by Francois Thomas via Wikipedia

John Keats (1795-1821) was a London-born English poet who, after being introduced to Romantic poets by Leigh Hunt, gave up a medical career to devote himself to verse.

Hunt published Keat’s first sonnets in the Examiner in 1816. Keat’s early work was regarded, even by himself in due time, as somewhat “mawkish and slipshod.” But his La Belle Dame Sans Merci and various Odes, such as Ode to a Grecian Urn, successfully adapt the Shakespearean and Petrarchian form of the sonnet.

To Autumn is often regarded as a masterpiece of English lyric poetry. For mythographers, Keats’ interest lies in his extensive reworking of classical Greek themes: Hyperion, Apollo, Ode to Psyche and the youthful Endymion, in which he pursues the ideal of pure beauty.

Refusing an invitation to spend the winter of 1820 in Italy with the Shelleys, he nonetheless borrowed enough funds to travel to Italy with a young painter in the following September. Shortly after, he died of tuberculosis in February at Rome.

Keats’ Letters were published in 1848 and 1878.

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Kafka, Franz

The entrance to the Franz Kafka museum in Prague via Wikipedia

Franz Kafka (1883-1924) was an Austrian novelist of German and Jewish parents, born in Prague.

Kafka pursued an education in law and took a position in an insurance firm (1907-23) before moving to Berlin. He published short stories and critical essays.

His best known work, Die Verwandlung (Metamorphosis, 1916), is about a man who awakes one morning to find himself transformed into a giant insect.

His unfinished novels were published after his death by a close associate, Max Brod. They include Ein Prozess (The Trial, 1925), Das Schloss (The Castle, 1926) and Amerika (1927).

Kafka’s haunting view of the world (known as ‘Kafkaesque‘) has left a lasting impression in the arts and humanities. In essence, Kafka saw life from the perspective of the innocent victim of dark totalitarian regimes, cleverly masked though endless bureaucracies.

No surprise, then, that politically he was an anarchist. But this kind of anarchist isn’t just about street protests and violence. In Kafka’s case it was a loosely connected political ideology where adherents generally believe in eschewing authority – especially authoritarianism – in favor of the supposed merits of a decentralized rule by the people.

Kafka was also against military power. So his form of anarchism was of the more peaceful and thoughtful type–perhaps something along the lines of what Jim Morrison and The Doors called “The Soft Parade.”

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Lorelei

The Rhine at the Loreley via Wikipedia

Lorelei is a Germanic enchantress or mermaid whose melodious song drew sailors over reefs to their doom.

Lorelei began as a literary figure created by Klemens Brentano at the turn of the 19^th century. This “Lore Lay”

is falsely accused of maliciously bewitching men and driving them to ruin; later pardoned and on the way to a nunnery she passes and climbs the Lorelei rock, watching out for the lover who abandoned her, and falls to her death; the rock still retained an echo of her name afterwards. Brentano had taken inspiration from Ovid and the Echo myth.¹

She soon became the object of poetry and legend throughout England, to the extent that a myth arose concerning a tall, echoing rock in the Rhine river-the “Lorelei Rock.”

Lorelei has also been recounted in song, from composers as diverse as the virtuoso Franz Liszt to the pop stars Styx and the underground hipsters the Cocteau Twins.

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¹ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorelei

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