Who Needs Greek?
Contests in the Cultural History of Hellenism

Lively study of conflicts about the meaning of Greek-ness in the modern and ancient worlds.

Simon Goldhill (Author)

9780521011761, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 4 April 2002

336 pages, 20 b/w illus.
23.1 x 15.2 x 1.7 cm, 0.46 kg

'Goldhill's elegant and witty writing … made the reading highly pleasurable. This is surely the most innovative book on the classical tradition to cross my desk, and one from which I will continue to draw inspiration, as well as information. … a carefully constructed, deeply researched, and elegantly argued text. It asks some extremely important questions … and the answers it gives are fresh, concise, and often amusing. … Goldhill has made an impressive, innovative and convincing case that we do, as a society, need Greek.' Hermathena

Does Greek matter? To whom and why? This interdisciplinary study focuses on moments when passionate conflicts about Greek and Greek-ness have erupted in both the modern and the ancient worlds. It looks at the Renaissance, when men were burned at the stake over biblical Greek, at violent Victorian rows over national culture and the schooling of a country, at the shocking performances of modernist opera - and it also examines the ancient world and its ideas of what it means to be Greek, especially in the first and second centuries CE. The book sheds light on how the ancient and modern worlds interrelate, and how fantasies and deals, struggles and conflicts have come together under the name of Greece. As a contribution to theatre studies, Renaissance and Victorian cultural history, and to the understanding of ancient writing, this book takes reception studies in an exciting alternative direction.

List of illustrations
List of abbreviations
Introduction: shaking the foundations
1. Learning Greek is heresy! Resisting Erasmus
2. Becoming Greek, with Lucian
3. Blood from the shadows: Strauss' disgusting degenerate Elektra
4. Who knows Greek?
5. The value of Greek. Why save Plutarch?
Conclusion: rainbow bridges
Works cited
Index.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX], Interdisciplinary studies [GT], Literary studies: classical, early & medieval [DSBB]