Classics in Contemporary Culture

Deus ex machina vs. Anime

An essay on io9.com--disturbed over the use of God or other supernatural forces in bringing recent television series to a close (Lost, Battlestar Galactica)--compares Aeschylus' Oresteia and Aristotle to the experience of writing anime:

These stories come from an inherently conservative point of view: everyone has a place to stand and a part to play, and attempts to step outside those boundaries can only result in pain and suffering. You'll notice that stories about God commonly involve triumph over the self, not triumph over an oppressive regime - Arjuna never once thinks that he should share his riches with the lower castes, or that he'll unseat the monarchy once he wins the battle. Doing so would overturn the "natural" order of his environment. Arjuna's kingdom, once he wins it, will continue to rely on slavery to sustain itself - because that's how Krishna wants it. God's role in these stories is a conservator, one who might snip off poisoned buds or gently nudge humans in one direction or another in attempt to preserve that which is good and right, without radically altering anything. God conserves the status quo, and we're supposed to take comfort in that: a place for everyone, and everyone in their place.

Recent American television finales have embraced this logic. The endings of Avatar: The Last Airbender, Battlestar Galactica, and LOST all involve a divine figure returning balance to an earthly equation by repeating an ancient pattern. The Avatar achieves his final state and the four nations again live in harmony. Humans create Cylons, battle Cylons, and become Cylons. The Island calls people in need of personal change, gives it to them, then lets them go (to Heaven) before calling another group. All of this has happened before, and will happen again. The pattern doesn't change, it simply repeats.

Another word for "repetition" is "letdown."

As far back as Aristotle, critics and audiences have measured the quality of a story by (among other things) whether it has a discernible beginning, middle, and end. Things must change. The characters must be in a different place than before, and the audience must feel for them. Traditionally, this comes about as a result of the character making a choice or taking an action that has consequences, and then suffering through them. Agamemnon sacrifices Iphigenia so that his ships might sail to Troy, and Clytemnestra retaliates by murdering him. Hamlet refuses to kill Claudius when he has the chance, and he (and everyone else) dies. Rochester lies to Jane about his marriage, and loses her. Meursault kills the Arab, then awaits his execution. Consequences follow actions. Stories progress. Circumstances change. Characters grow.

But lately on American television, they haven't. Lately, all tension has been drained from their actions, and all opportunities for choice have been robbed from them by fate. Does it matter that humans created Cylons? Not really. They did it because God wanted them to. Does it matter that the Losties all had issues with their parents that they needed to overcome before they could be whole? Nah. They were all in Purgatory, anyhow. Does it matter that Aang had lost access to the Avatar State? No - apparently stray rocks can unblock his chakra. (That's right, kids: Aang works like the Millennium Falcon - a well-placed punch can bring his circuits back online.)

Classic Comics

Some nice Classically-themed comics by Luke Surl; for example, this one on Prometheus:

See also: 

• Atlas Shrugged
• Minotaur Myth-Busted
• Ad Hominem 

Classics for Business Majors

Steve Forbes and John Prevas have just published a book entitled, Power Ambition Glory: The Stunning Parallels between Great Leaders of the Ancient World and Today...and the Lessons You Can Learn. And (surprise, surprise!) there's a feature section on the book at Forbes.com, including some excerpts (on Alexander, Caesar, and Augustus), and also little mini-questionnaires answered by various people, on the issue of how study of the Classics has impacted their lives.  Definitely worth checking out...Here, for example, is Garrison Keillor:

Forbes: Tell us about a time when lessons learned from the ancients contributed to your success.

Keillor: The ancients were dubious of success. They knew the gods were fickle, and if a mortal climbed too high up the cliff, the gods would stomp on his fingers and throw him into the sea. And, actually, the sea was the place to be. You could set sail and go see new worlds and meet mysterious women. "To travel hopefully is better than to arrive"--that is ancient wisdom. Start every day in a spirit of adventure and you're as successful as you can be.

If you could invite one classical figure to dinner, who would it be and why?

The Roman poet Horace, whose "Ode to Pyrrha" (What slender young man doused with cologne is courting you with roses in the garden shade? / Beautiful lady, for whom do you comb your fair hair?) I tried to translate as a kid in Maggie Forbes' Latin class at the University of Minnesota. Ovid was a greater poet, but Horace would be a better dinner guest. Not so oracular, more confidential, even gossipy.

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Greeks or Romans?

The Greeks. Because they were funnier, they told fantastic stories (trips to the moon, slaves flying to heaven on the back of a giant dung beetle, women ending war with a sex strike), they loved games and sort of believed in democracy. The Romans were terrific engineers and bureaucrats, were good at water management and highway construction, but you've got to prefer the Greeks. Most Romans did, too.

Ok, who doesn't like Garrison Keillor, but...Ovid a better poet than Horace!? Really, now...Well, de gustibus and all that...

Tim O'Reilly, who was also interviewed, posted an unabridged version of the interview with him at his own website.

[Thanks to JMY on CLASSICS-L]

Heroic Epic --> Christian Epic --> Video Game

Slated for release in early 2010, a project by Visceral Games lets you play the underworld explorer:  Dante's Inferno.  Your guide is still Virgil, although he plays a smaller role than in Dante's poem:

Once in Hell, you meet Virgil in Limbo.  In contrast to the poem, Dante doesn't actually follow the guy around.  Instead, Virgil just appears every so often and speaking to him is optional.  He just sort of floats around narrating our hero's tale.  Poor Virgil, his job must really suck.

And yes, your job is primarily to kill demons -- but the visuals are amazing!

As Dante travels through each circle of Hell, Beatrice's spirit remains beyond his grasp.  Meanwhile, he has to face his own sins at every stage, like he's stuck within his personal Hell while traveling through Lucifer's domain.

The devs point out that their Dante is an extreme reimagining of the 13th century poet and policitian who authored the Divine Comedy, which is rather obvious from the start.  Not only is this guy running around with a scythe nearly twice his size, he's actually quite apt with it, butchering defenseless demons and what not.

Players will find series of brutal animations to discover, depending on how you want to finish off your enemies, and that scythe allows Dante to control certain (very large) demons by shoving the blade in their skulls.  Hey, there are worst ways to travel in Hell than riding on the back / head of a giant rampaging abomination.  Phlegyas, pictured above, is just one of many such monstrosities you'll be hitching a ride on.

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But I can't reiterate how engrossing the visuals are for this game, especially if you're familiar with the original Divine Comedy; the devs have made en effort to design the characters as they are described in the poem, "only angrier," given that everything is now trying to kill Dante instead of letting him pass through with somber indifference.

A nice example of this is the blind King Minos, Judge of the Dead, who appears in the game as Aligheri portrays -- a monstrous hybrid between man and snake.  In the poem, he "shakes the urn and calls on the assembly of the silent, to learn the lives of men and their misdeeds," his tail wrapping around his body a number of times equal to the soul's assigned level of Hell.  In the game, he is still rather ugly and... tries to kill Dante.  If you manage to defeat him, you'll be treated to a graphic death-scene, involving a spiked wheel and Minos' tongue.  Go ahead and fill in the blanks on that one.

Tense Moments in the US House...And the Real Reason for the Fall of the Roman Empire

Oh, Language Log!  Always a source of fun...

From today:  Extensive excerpts from last year's congressional investigations into possible contraventions of the Hatch Act by Lurita Doan, now dredged up again in the wake of her resignation/dismissal...I had not realized that such an extensive grammatical discussion had been involved.  Latin teachers, hold on tight...Here's the paragraph that brings in the Latin:

REP. JOHN P. SARBANES (D-MD): I hope my mother’s watching. She’s a Latin teacher, and I’m just going to take issue with your citing of the hortatory subjunctive. (Laughter.) The actual tense that was used in the statement about will not be getting promoted and so forth, that is just clearly the future tense. It’s not future perfect or future pluperfect or anything of that nature.

So really, there is a reason to learn all those terms in Latin class:  for the purpose of obfuscation in the halls of Congress.  But privately, of course, make sure you do know the difference between tense, mood, voice, and that stuff; or not, I guess:  does "I didn't know what I was talking about" qualify as "plausible deniability"?

From a week ago, in a post entitled "PONT MAX TR POT LOL" (and citing the Epea Pteroenta blog as the source), a new explanation of the Fall of Rome is advanced:  a frame of mind not unlike the one so prevalent among text-messagers..."Kids these days," and all that...

Be Jason

Another game on a mythological theme is set to be released later this year by Liquid Entertainment:  Rise of the Argonauts.  There's a preview:

In Rise of the Argonauts, you control Jason and his crew (which includes Hercules, Perseus, Atalanta, and others) aboard the Argos. Basically, Jason's trying to resurrect his wife, and will need to find the means to do so. With your ship it's possible to sail all across the game world, giving you the ability to select which path you choose to advance through the game. When you land on islands, you'll talk to villagers, power-up Jason through shrines, and recruit others to work on your ship.

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These gods factor prominently in the character development system as well, as Jason will be able to go to each of their specific shrines and trade deeds for abilities. What are deeds, you ask? They're sort of like Xbox Live achievements. If you perform a deed (killing 10 enemies in under one minute, slaying specific monsters), you'll get a little notification through a pop-up screen. Each deed turned in at the gods' shrines strengthens Jason's favor with them and grants access to godly powers and passive abilities in line with the gods' personalities. You'll be able to visit the four gods freely, meaning visiting one shrine doesn't prevent you from visiting another, but you won't be able to learn every ability from every deity, meaning you'll need to make a few decisions as to where to concentrate your power depending on how much of the game world you choose to explore.

Got it?  Oh, and here are some screenshots...So, my only question is, why not stick with the Argo...and, well, maybe the Golden Fleece will in fact end up being part of the game; who can say?

Playing Cleopatra

A new classically-themed video game...and a new post at this perenially neglected blog!

In "Cleopatra:  Riddle of the Tomb" you can explore the world of ancient Alexandria.  The scenario:

The country is divided by civil war pitting Cleopatra’s supporters against those of her brother and husband, Ptolemy, who is ravaging the country. In this climate of terror, Thomas, a young apprentice to Akkad, Cleopatra’s astrologist and astronomist, falls in love with his Master’s daughter. One day, in horror, he discovers that both Master and daughter have been kidnapped…

This is where your journey begins, taking you to some of Egypt’s most legendary sites to solve a conspiracy that runs deeper than anyone could have ever imagined.

Most intriguingly, gameplay varies depending on your astrological sign...

More Scanned Texts

Oh yes, I also meant to mention a couple other sources of scanned books of interest to students of antiquity...The "Text Archive" section of the "Internet Archive" (archive.org) has a number of such books, although meta-data (as with Google) is not always there, and there are not many Latin and Greek texts, as far as I have seen so far; they also have replicas of (e.g.) Project Gutenberg stuff.   The site does have, on the good side, for example, Bywater's edition of Aristotle's Poetics...

Further, somewhat randomly, some scanned Early Christian texts appear at the "Biblical Archives" of a site called ChristianHospitality.org.  Good especially because it has scanned versions of some otherwise hard-to-find things like Irenaeus and Epiphanius.  So, worth having in the bookmarks...

e-Byzantium

Whew...another mess o' Google Books linked:  the Corpus Scriptorum Historiae Byzantinae [50 volumes of (Greek) texts on Byzantine history, with accompanying Latin translation].  Here's the link...the list is sandwiched in between the index of Migne's PG and that of PL, and at this point is followed by a few random Byzantine texts, until I figure out a better way of indexing those...

Could this be just the opportunity you were waiting for to dip into some John Cantacuzenus?

Ok, Google Books noch einmal

I would be remiss not to note that Google Books has been keeping up the digitization...such that many of the books I initially found to be viewable only are now also downloadable.  I have put links to as many of the volumes of Patrologia Latina as I have been able to (i.e., most of them), on my Biblical, Jewish and Early Christian page.  You can find there also quite a number of works of Augustine (many in CSEL editions), among other things.  Recent additions at the Latin Literature page are a bunch of Cicero.  Greek Literature continues (more slowly) to expand, piecemeal.  And I've started on another page:  Classics of Scholarship.

Enjoy...