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Talk about presentism ...

2/24/2020

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https://getpocket.com/explore/item/why-doesn-t-ancient-fiction-talk-about-feelings?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Click on the link above to go to an article, by a Brown academic, who bemoans the lack of emotion in what she calls "ancient" literature. But the "ancient" literature she cites consists of medieval, mainly Icelandic literature. To my knowledge, "ancient" literature in the West refers to Greek and Roman literature, which includes of course the drama of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides and the comedies of Aristophanes, Plautus and Terence, not to mention the poetry of Sappho, Virgil, Ovid, Homer and others. Lack of emotion? I guess you just have to shrink the spectrum of history to ignore everything before 1000CE to make her argument work. And then there are non-Western works, such as plays by Kalidasa or Sudraka. I guess she's trying to make a point, but by excluding a huge chunk of literary history, I'm not sure what it is ...
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    David Hammerbeck

    Writer, professor of literature and theatre, director, actor, traveler and bon vivant....


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