NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES • VOLUME 5 NUMBER 1 • FEBRUARY 1984 Humanities The Enduring Myths of Ancient Greece

The European Renaissance, through throughout because the purpose its rediscovery of the Greek (and was in the main preparation for many of the Latin) classics, estab­ modern literature; theories of myth, lished for the generations that fol­ its origins and functions were not lowed a common cultural back­ the prime concern. This is of course ground for secular literature and no longer the case; mythology as a art: the rich and varied mythology humanistic subject of study is now of ancient Greece. Its themes be­ concerned at least as much with came familiar not only to those theory as with content. The change who read the Greek classics in the has come about because of develop­ original but also to a larger audi­ ments in other fields. Previously ence who knew them through the unknown mythologies, those of medium of the Latin poets and to preliterate peoples, have been re­ still greater numbers who read corded and investigated by field an­ avidly the work of the great transla­ thropologists; archaeologists work­ tors of the period—Chapman, San- ing in the Middle East have dug up dys, Dryden, to mention only those and deciphered documents that writing in English. Until fairly late revealed forgotten mythologies— in the nineteenth century, a Euro­ Babylonian, Hittite, Ugaritic; folk­ pean writer or painter could count lorists have collected the oral nar­ on recognition of Greek mytholog­ rative traditions of shepherds and ical themes; Shakespeare, Milton, peasants. A wealth of comparative Pope, Keats, Browning and Tenny­ material, most of it not literary but son, like Tiepolo, Titian and Pous­ living and functioning in society, sin, could take for granted an audi­ has become available for compara­ ence familiar with the classical gods tive study. Myth has also emerged and heroes. They counted on a as a primary subject of concern for public educated like themselves in new psychological theories, as a the classics at school or, as in the key, like dreams, to the deepest an­ case of John Keats, self-taught with xieties of the individual psyche or the aid of Lampriere's famous clas­ of the collective unconscious. Myth sical dictionary. More recent writ­ is also the base for a far-reaching ers, though they can no longer ex­ theory of the nature of human pect an immediate response to clas­ mental activity, not just that of pre­ sical allusions, continue to rework literate societies but of all mankind. the ancient material in modern It was only to be expected that form, as in Joyce's Ulysses, Stravin­ these new assessments of the func­ sky's Oedipus, Sartre's Les Mouches, tion of myth in preliterate societies, Cocteau's Machine Infemale, Hoff- these new analyses of its role in the mannstahl-Strauss' Elektra and human unconscious, should have Anouilh's Antigone— not to mention their effect on the study of the the latest revival, The Gospel at most completely documented, var­ Colonus. ied, rich and splendid mythology As the study of the classics in we possess: the Greek vision of the the original languages lost its once gods on Olympus and their compli­ dominant position in the curricu­ cated relations with each other and lum of Western culture (a process with mankind; the intermediate accelerated sharply in the years af­ world of creatures neither human ter the second world war), the need nor divine—nymphs, satyrs, cen­ to provide a background for Eng­ taurs; the history of a heroic hu­ lish literature and the history of art man world through some four or saw the birth of "mythology” as an five generations of great dramatic independent subject: an elementary figures, culminating in two famous course in the main areas of classical o sieges, of Thebes and of Troy, and myth, with perhaps some excur­ coming to an unemphatic end with 3£ sions into the Norse and Celtic tra­ OJ 3 the sons and daughters of those ditions. The emphasis was literary Oedipus confronts the Sphinx on a fifth-century B.C. Attic vase. s who fought at Troy. After Orestes, Telemachus, Electra, Hermione and Laocoon and his sons Neoptolemus, the saga peters out. struggle with the ser­ Editor's Notes There had of course been what pents of Poseidon. "Long before Aristotle formulated might be called theoretical ap­ Laocoon was attacked the rules for tragic plot, Greek proaches to the phenomenon of and killed because he myths had been shaped to fit myth even in the ancient world. tried to warn Troy against the wooden horse them ," writes Bernard Knox. Mr. The embarassing aspects of Olym­ built by the Greeks. Knox examines the various ap­ pian conduct could be explained proaches to the study of classical away as allegory; this was a spe­ mythology from the Renaissance to cialty of the sophist Prodicus, who our own day, with particular em­ maintained that Demeter was simp­ phasis on Claude Levi-Strauss's ly the grain and Dionysus the structural analysis as well as the wine, and in the hands of the Neo- psychoanalytic theorists who have platonic philosophers of late anti­ put "hundreds of mythical figures quity the method reached baroque and situations relentlessly through levels of ingenuity. Or the myths the Freudian grinder." could be simply rationalized, ex­ Robert M. Wallace, the translator plained as mistaken interpretations of Arbeit am Mythos, a major work of human phenomena, as in Euhe- of Hans Blumenberg, one of merus' theory that the gods were Germany's leading postwar philos­ originally great men, Heracles, for ophers, says that Blumenberg ad­ example, who did so much for hu­ dresses a question that has troubled manity that tradition deified them. European thinkers since the late A still later writer, Palaephatus, at­ seventeenth century: "Why, with tributed the creation of mythical the triumphant advance of secular, wonders (the title of his book is On scientific rationality, have the old Incredible Things) to linguistic mis­ myths not simply evaporated into understanding; Pasiphae doesn't thin air? How is it that they have fall in love with a bull but with a maintained and even increased handsome lieutenant of her hus­ their hold on...our imaginations?" band called Tauros; Sphinx was a These are the questions that gave rejected wife of Cadmus who com­ rise to the theme of this issue of manded a guerilla band against him Humanities. For the study of on the mountains (Palaephatus ex­ myth—not only classical Greek plains the riddle by the barefaced mythology but the myths of prelit­ assertion that the Greek word ainig- erate societies and other peoples ma meant 'ambush' in the Theban throughout the world—have be­ dialect). Strangely enough Palae­ come a subject of increasing inter­ phatus thus produced a prophetic est, made available for comparative travesty of the nineteenth-century of the sun chariot, which could in­ tions in general but specifically study through the work of anthro­ theory of Max Muller, that myth deed be regarded as symbolic of with ritual: Myths were sacred tales pologists, archaeologists, and was a "disease of language": that real phenomena, but only by fol­ intimately connected with and pro­ others. In this work, scholars are gods had emerged from early lowers of Professor Velikovsky. A bably derived from ritual; some discovering that perhaps myth is man's misunderstanding of Indo- later, very influential theory took were tales that tried to explain rit­ not the irrational, "dark side" of European words for the heavenly almost precisely the opposite posi­ uals which in the course of time the human unconscious, but a basis bodies, especially the sun. tion: Myths were not aetiological, had become unintelligible or appar­ for understanding the mental pro­ Muller's real importance lay in they did not explain natural phe­ ently pointless. The most famous of cesses of all humankind. his work on Sanskrit and early In­ nomena, or for that matter any­ these rituals was of course the cele­ —Judith Chayes Neiman dian texts; his theory that all myths thing else. Their function was so­ bration of the birth of the year-god were some kind of solar imagery cial: They validated institutions— and the mourning for his death, soon fell into disrepute. It was fol­ kingship, tribal precedence and the the central mystery of ancient relig­ lowed by others that all, though like, for which they were a "char­ ion as Frazer presents it in his fa­ they differed from it in almost ter." This theory had the advan­ mous book The Golden Bough, a Humanities every respect, shared with it one tage, unlike some of the others, theory richly developed by Jane A bimonthly review published by the fatal weakness: They were pro­ that it was based on anthropolo­ Harrison in Themis and other vol­ National Endowment for the Humanities posed as universal theories of gical work in the field, that of Mal­ umes. That there are important Chairman: William J. Bennett myth; they claimed to explain Director of Public Affairs: Marion Blakey inowski in the Trobriand Islands of connections between ritual and everything. And in every case this Assistant Director for Publications: the Pacific Ocean. It was a general myth (in some cases extremely claim proved impossible to main­ Caroline Taylor theory that shed new light on some close connections) no one would tain in the face of the bewildering Editor: Judith Chayes Neiman of the Greek myths. The story of deny. But there are also a multi­ variety of myth, especially of the Managing Editor: Linda Blanken Ion, son of Apollo, for example (the tude of myths that cannot reason­ classic example, Greek myth. Editorial Board: James Blessing, Harold subject of one of Euripides' most ably be so connected. As for the Cannon, Richard Ekman, Donald Gibson, A more generalized and modest exciting plays), took on larger di­ "Year Spirit" of the Harrison Thomas Kingston, Armen Tashdinian, version of Muller's theory saw school, though such figures as Jeffrey Wallin myth as primitive man's attempt to mensions when seen as a charter Adonis and (with some ingenuity) Production Manager: Robert Stock understand and explain nature, not myth of Athens' preeminent role in Dionysus can be offered as symbol­ Designed by Maria Josephy Schoolman just the movements of the sun but the communal religious rites that ic equivalents, ancient Greek litera­ the revolutions of all the heavenly linked the Ionian cities of the The opinions and conclusions expressed in Aegean islands and the Asia Minor ture offers no support for such a Humanities are those of the authors and do not bodies as well as the earthly phe­ personification of the seasonal cycle necessarily reflect Endowment policy. Material nomena of weather, flood, earth­ coast. But as a general theory of appearing in Humanities may be freely and in fact the name given to this quake, and so on. Clearly much of Greek myth it was woefully inade­ reproduced although the editor would appreci­ quate; apart from the fact that figure by its creators, Eniautos ate notice and copies for the Endowment's the material in Hesiod's Theogony Daimon, is not even syntactically reference. Use of funds for printing this encourages such speculation, but many important myths could not publication has been approved by the Office idiomatic Greek. even if the whole tale of Troy (as be understood as "charters" no of Management and Budget. Send address Between those theories of the well as that of Thebes) is excluded matter how ingenious the interpre­ changes and requests for subscriptions to the origin and nature of myth that em­ Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Govern­ as saga, not pure myth, there is tation, Malinowski's total rejection phasize the link to social institu­ ment Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. still a large number of awkward of intellectual and speculative ele­ (USPS 521-090) Other communications should tions and those that invoke deep specimens that refuse to yield to ments in myth is clearly not tenable be addressed to Editor, Humanities, National psychological structures, a halfway Endowment for the Humanities, 1100 Pennsyl­ treatment—Daphne's metamorpho­ for the Greek material. vania Avenue, NW, Washington, D.C. 20506. sis into a laurel tree, for example, An even more influential theory house is to be found in the work of Telephone 202/786-0435. ISSN 0018-7526. or Phaethon's disastrous handling connected myths not with institu­ Dumezil. Although, unlike other 2 theories of myth, his does not claim sions in such unmythological cre­ the "struggle with the oral-narcis- to be universal; it is concerned ex­ ations as Plato's Republic but failing sistic dilemma," which is more clusively with the mythology and to unseat a strong conviction in the graphically described as the child's institutions of the Indo-European mind of most readers that Dumezil defense against the Maternal peoples. He sees these mythologies was right about Greece the first Threat—the "entangling, smother­ —Indian, Hittite, Scythian, Iranian, time around. ing devouring mother...." This is Roman, Norse and Celtic—as char­ The other champions of myth as certainly the most narrowly unitary acterized by "collective representa­ the product of the unconscious do theory of Greek myth ever pro­ tions” of their tripartite social or­ not confine their speculations to the pounded, and as was to be ex­ ganization, a hierarchical order of minds of the Indo-Europeans; these pected, it is maintained only by three "functions”—royal priest­ are, once again, universal theories. Procrustean handling of the evi­ hood, warrior caste, herdsman-cul- The most famous exponent of them dence, transformation games with tivator class. The structure of so­ however, Sigmund Freud, was not identities (Orestes has three ciety, reflected in myth, was that of primarily interested in myth. Its "mothers," for example—Clytem- the Indo-European people before its creation was for him, like dream­ nestra, the Furies, and Electra) and diaspora and lived on, with modifi­ ing, an important psychic activity, the use of suspect sources (the late cations, in the separate societies but not as amenable to clinical Christian apologist Athenagoras on that developed after the migrations. study. In any case he did not feel Zeus for example) who are some­ Dumezil's best case is, of course, well enough equipped for the task times misunderstood. the Indian (which is the base of his of interpreting the material; "w e Less ambitious practitioners theory): Three clases of gods cor­ are amateurs and have every rea­ (more at home than Slater in the respond to the three classes of son to fear mistakes," he wrote in language and literature of the Brahmans, warriors and cultivators. 1909 as he offered to put his "psy­ Greeks) have limited themselves to But Hittite myth is fragmentary, ob­ choanalytic armory" at the disposal individual myths, especially to the scure and in short supply; Scythian of an Austrian classicist (who, in most splendid literary treatment of even more exiguous (and depen­ the event, declined the offer and myth, Attic tragedy. Typical are dent on the account of a Greek, later, in fact, resigned from the two attempts to deal with problems Herodotus); the evidence from Iran Vienna Psychoanalytic Society al­ that seem to offer promising is controversial; Celtic mythology together). Freud himself, however, ground for such an approach (c.f. we know mainly from hostile Latin though he rarely proposes a de­ Arethusa, VII 1, 1974): the fanatical accounts. The Norse myths, how­ tailed analysis of a Greek myth, resistance to marriage on the part (bottom left) Apollo Pursuing Daphne ever, can be fitted into Dumezil's based his central and most famous of Danaus' daughters in Aeschylus' by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, 1696 - patterns and so can real Roman theory on the story of Oedipus. In Suppliants, the complete sexual as­ 1770. Note that her hands are begin­ myths, the tales of the early kings, fact, the passage in his Interpretation ceticism (a very rare phenomenon ning to change into a Laurel tree. so brilliantly recreated in the first of Dreams, which announces the fa­ in pagan antiquity) of young Hip- (top to bottom) An Etruscan statue of five books of Livy. And the mous complex—"his destiny moves polytus in the Euripidean play that Herakles, third century B.C. Poly­ Greeks? In his original publication us only because it might have been bears his name. But the daughters' phemus, the Cyclops, from second- (1958) Dumezil has to confess de­ ours—because the oracle laid the rejection of marriage is attributed to century B.C. Italy. Oedipus slaying feat: "Greece makes little contri­ same curse upon us before our an "unresolved Oedipus complex" the Sphinx. bution to comparative study; even birth as upon him "—is framed in —an excessive attachment to their the most important aspects of the an attempt to explain why Sopho­ father that makes them "unable to legacy were profoundly modified cles' Oedipus the King can still move love other men." The play shows there.” modern audiences while "tragedies no evidence of such attachment But of course this recalcitrance of of fate" based on invented plots (and Aeschylus' Danaus is in any Greek myth is a basic weakness in fail to produce the same effect. case a poor figure, an ineffectual a theory that claims the Indo-Euro- Freud's reluctance to tackle the Polonius). We are informed how­ pean mind-set as its province. In a whole body of Greek myth was of ever that the "father" who mono­ later work (1968), Dumezil attemp­ course not shared by his disciples, polizes the affections of the Danaids ted to fit the hero Heracles into his and in recent years especially, the is really Zeus. Aristotle thought it system. It is only a partial success, "psychoanalytic armory" has been "absurd" for anyone to profess and even if it had been complete, fully deployed. There is at least one friendship for Zeus; one wonders would have left huge mythological attempt at a sort of universal what he would have thought of the domains still unaffected by the col­ theory: Philip Slater's Glory of Hera idea that fifty young ladies could be lective representations of the Indo- which puts hundreds of mythical fi­ in love with him. As for Hippoly- European ancestors. Disciples of gures and situations relentlessly tus, we are treated to a discussion Dumezil have followed his lead, through the Freudian grinder from of his obsession with his illegiti­ finding the proper tripartite divi­ which they emerge as examples of macy (a minor theme in the text of the play) and much speculation about his relationship with his mother Hippolyta, (a subject never mentioned in the play) and "the peculiar circumstances of his up­ bringing." Although the terminol­ ogy is brand new (cathexis, repres­ sion, introjection, etc.), this deep investigation of fictional character is very old-fashioned. "The conduct of the tragic character must be ac­ counted for from the whole of the character, from general principles, from latent motives and from poli­ cies not avowed." That sentence sounds like a manifesto of Freudian criticism but it comes in fact from Maurice Morgann's Essay on the Dramatic Character of Sir John Fal- staff, which was published in 1777. Claude Lev i-Strauss's structural­ ist analysis of myth stems, like Mal­ inowski's theory of myth as a char­ ter for institutions, from anthropol- 3 ogical investigation; his area of con­ an interpretation of the human or­ aim is to explain as succinctly as piled from literary sources, from centration is the mythology and so­ der as a fixed projection of the na­ possible the functioning of the the vast bulk of classical Greek lit­ cieties of the Indian tribes of South tural order." And it is true that the mechanical toy he is trying to sell erature that did not survive the end and North America. But, unlike Greek myths, with their historical to the onlookers." of the ancient world. The myths as Dumezil, he does not claim to ex­ arrangement of events on Olympus The reason Levi-Strauss believes we know them are not operating in plore a local phenomenon; his as on earth, are a world away from that the technique is "probably not men's minds without their being theory is universal. His objective is the timeless preagricultural forest legitimate" he gives as the fact that aware of the fact; they are the pro­ to formulate the "laws operating at world of the Bororo Indians, in the "myth has reached us under duct of conscious manipulation by a deeper level" than the conscious whose myths human beings marry late forms and through literary poets who shaped them for their mind in the process of myth-mak­ jaguars and children turn into ant­ transmutations concerned more own purposes. Unlike the raw ma­ ing, laws working beneath the hills. It is significant that in the one with aesthetic and moral preoccu­ terial drawn on by anthropologists mind's "supposedly spontaneous case where Levi-Strauss did at­ pations than religious or ritual (and the myths of Levi-Strauss's flow of inspiration and its seem­ tempt an analysis of a Greek myth, ones...." But this is hue not only Bororos are the rawest of the lot), ingly uncontrolled inventiveness." the Oedipus story, he apologized. of the Oedipus myth; it is the case Greek myths are finished artistic The myth-makers are not conscious "The technique," he says, "is pro­ for almost the whole body of Greek products. Unlike the myths of of these laws. "I therefore claim," bably not legitimate in this in­ myth as we have it. The late myth­ many preliterate peoples, they lack he says in a famous statement, "to stance ..." and he compares his ological handbooks that flesh out the fantasy, what one critic has show not how men think in myths performance with that of the our surviving literary treatments in called "that crude power and ec­ but how myths operate in men's camelot, the street peddler "whose epic, lyric and drama were all com­ static dislocation of ordinary life minds without their being aware of that may be an essential element in the fact." the formation of a truly creative His method, shown at work on culture" and another their "ap­ an impressive number of myths parent craziness, futility, not to say (353 in the first two of his four-vol­ complete absurdity...." These are ume Mythologiques) elicits from the the features of primitive myth that transformations and, to use his evoke Levi-Strauss's paradigmatic own term, coding systems of the and synchronic rearrangements, rich variety of mythical material backed by complicated diagrams, to common human concerns, basic reveal hidden meanings. But Greek contradictions of human life and myths are all coherent stories, with culture (death and immortality, the a beginning, middle and end, a se­ raw and the cooked) that the quence of events explicitly located myths, by means not always clearly in place and time, each event the explained, "mediate" or "resolve." necessary or at least the probable The purpose of myth is to provide result of its predecessor, and the a logical mode capable of overcom­ events so closely connected that the ing a contradiction...." transposal or withdrawal of any These are exciting formulas for one will dislocate the whole. This is Greek scholars; they raise hope, for in essence Aristotle's definition of example, of a new approach to that tragic plot (for which of course he medium of Greek literature which uses the word mythos) but long be­ is the most brilliant exploitation of fore Aristotle formulated the rules myth—tragedy. Ever since Aristotle for tragic plot, Greek myths had proposed the suggestive but ob­ been shaped to fit them. scure formula of catharsis as an ex­ E. R. Dodds, in his great book planation of the psychological puz­ The Greeks and the Irrational, while zle posed by tragedy—the myster­ rejecting older schools of myth- ious process by which the spectacle interpretation (including Frazer's of human suffering is made to pro­ "Year-spirits") concedes hand­ duce feelings of acceptance or even somely that "they have all in their of consolation—critics have experi­ day helped to illuminate dark mented with new formulas and de­ places in the ancient record." Of finitions. "Mediation" and "resolu­ the more recent approaches it can tion" as a function of myth seem to be said that they have forced every­ offer the possibility of finding al­ one to abandon old complacencies ready encapsulated in the basic ma­ and engage in a fundamental re­ terial of tragedy deep structures consideration of the nature of that enable the tragic poet to work Greek myth. They have also served his magic. to remind us that in spite of its The hope has not been fulfilled. narrative charm and formal ele­ "Mediation" and "resolution" turn gance Greek myth is not a pheno­ out to be no more definable than menon to be discussed in none but catharsis and in case after case aesthetic terms. Freudian emphasis where critics have sought the "con­ on the individual unconscious re­ tradictions" that are to be "re­ minds us that Greek myth, through solved," they turn out to be the its presentation of human (and di­ antithesis between nature and cul­ vine) action almost exclusively in ture, which was already well the context of family relationships, known to the Greeks as the anti­ can tap deep, hidden wells of feel­ thesis physis-nomos, nature and con­ ing in the soul. And Levi-Strauss's vention. As a matter of fact Levi- brilliant elucidations of primitive Strauss himself, like Dumezil, had myth convince us that even though at an early stage excepted the Greek myth may not mediate be­ Greeks from the terms of his analy­ tween opposing terms by the con­ sis. Greece is one of those "great struction of logical models depend­ civilizations of Europe and Asia" ing on codes, it does raise funda­ that "have chosen to explain them­ mental social, religious and even selves by means of history"; once philosophical problems. such a step has been taken "dia­ —Bernard Knox chrony wins an irrevocable victory Mr. Knox is director of The Center for over synchrony, making impossible Hellenic Studies in Washington, D.C. 4 Transmitting the Oral Tradition

Zeus medallion Actaeon's death.

There is a sense in which Homer, the natural order. Actaeon's deed the early 1970s, he applied for a each adaptation. "We want neither the blind poet chanting of Achilles' can be likened to an accidental fall position as director of drama and an academic treatise nor a cartoon wrath to an unseen audience, was from a building: The results are the literature for KPFK, the Pacifica ra­ treatment like some of the Norse the first broadcaster. Everett Frost, same whatever the intentions. dio station in Los Angeles. "It took myths that actually appear on Sat­ the project director for a forthcom­ The commentary will make clear me about fifteen minutes to realize urday-morning television now," he ing series of radio dramas drawn that agricultural civilizations are I loved radio," he recalls. "Broad­ says. "The advisers create a heal­ from classical mythology, likes to much more conscious than tech­ casting is much like teaching in that thy dialectic over each script." point out that present-day radio nological ones of human subjuga­ you are spreading seeds, but to a While most of the stories will be producers would do well to study tion to Nature, whose mysterious much extended audience. And un­ fully dramatized, with actors' the techniques of the ancient bards. and terrible power as well as beau­ like television, radio retains some­ voices and sound effects, each will "In myths a major event often oc­ ty are represented by the goddess. thing of the personal quality of the take the form appropriate to the curs in the first two minutes of the But why study antiquity when classroom." myth. Wherever a lyric or bardic telling," says Frost. "This epic tra­ comics, television, and the movies The series on Hellenic myths voice is important, as in the Ho­ dition of beginning in media res, generate new forms of popular now in production at WGBH is a meric hymn to Demeter, the narra­ perhaps a method of keeping an mythology every year? For Frost scaled-down version of his ambi­ tor will predominate. When Echo, unsophisticated audience of thug the answer is always double-edged. tious plans for a 104-program series pining for Narcissus, slowly wastes warriors interested in the tale, "Myth-making is part of our basic that would treat classical, biblical, away, as the myth goes, until no­ makes the stories punchy in the thought structure at a subliminal and Near Eastern mythologies, thing remains but her voice, sound way a generation raised on Star level," he says. "We tend to speak tracing parallel developments technology creates an enchanting Wars can appreciate." in mythical terms even when we among them. When forced to trim special effect. A character's voice Employing state-of-the-art radio don't realize it. Every account of back, Frost decided to concentrate on radio is given deeper, fuller technology, Frost is now in the pro­ the rise and fall of a great political on classical myths because the ma­ sound by the addition of a reverb. cess of adapting thirteen of Ovid's leader recapitulates the journey of terial is generally better researched The voice of the actress portraying accounts of Greek myths for an the sun god. The enduring power and the subject less arcane to Echo will be removed from the NEH-funded series, scheduled for of myth explains why heroes like American ears. Frost chose Ovid as tape, leaving the hollow, distant broadcast on public radio stations the Phantom or the Lone Ranger the basis for the dramatizations not sound of the reverb alone, as Echo this fall. Produced by WGBH in never get any older. Myths still op­ only because of the brilliance and dissolves into her voice. Boston, the project is an outgrowth erate with tremendous force, and wit of his hexameter but also be­ In planning the new radio series, of the Spider's Web program, serial by not telling the old stories, we cause the Metamorphoses is the first Frost and his advisers have used a dramatizations of nineteenth-cen- deprive today's children of some­ work to have organized a collection broad definition of myth, one that tury American masterpieces. Al­ thing in which they are intrinsically of myths with a central narrative does not argue for a particular criti­ though the mythology series is de­ interested. and thematic framework. The Meta­ cal stance. Their aim is something signed for twelve- to eighteen-year- "Secondly, and in a much more morphoses progresses from the orig­ more fundamental. As Paul Good­ olds, the current Spider's Web also explicit way, cultures grow on inal metamorphosis, the transfor­ man once wrote about Greek and attracts a national audience of myths like reefs grow out of coral. I mation of Chaos into order, to the biblical myths: "If these stories are 100,000 adults each week. can't remember how many times in transformation in the poet's time of no longer told to children . . . , Frost aspires to entertain—myths teaching literature classes I've had civil chaos into order under Augus­ then the tradition must lapse .... are, first of all, good stories that to explain who Tristan was. Any­ tus. Yet because the Greek myths In fact the situation is fast becom­ have stood the test of time—as well one who's taken students through lose some of their religious force in ing as follows: (a) There ceases to as to educate teenagers about the a museum realizes that when they Ovid's late, rather literary accounts, be a large public aware of the stor­ central role classical mythology look at a painting of the rape of Frost will often dig back into earlier ies. (b) The learned and intellectual plays in Western culture. To that Europa, they see a 'dirty' picture; sources—Homeric hymns and the poets to whom the stories are deep­ end, each half-hour program will they feel no resonances until you plays of Euripides, Aeschylus, and ly meaningful cling to them all the include a fully dramatized story tell them the story. As Northrop Aristophanes, for example—in writ­ more defiantly, (c) But their han­ from Ovid's Metamorphoses followed Frye has observed, the great stories ing the scripts. dling becomes increasingly private by several minutes of commentary of Western mythologies need to be Turning myths into workable ra­ and hectic, lacking the centrality of discussing the myth's implications. learned early in life so they can dio dramas is more than a one-man the story clear and grand in form, The treatment of Actaeon, the story sink to the bottom of the mind and task, however. The project is ad­ (d) What was originally human fate of the hunter who chances upon provide a foundation for further ap­ vised by fourteen scholars in the comes more and more to be the the goddess Diana bathing in the preciation of all the humanities. humanities, including such eminent private case history of the poet, (e) woods and is turned into a stag Writers like Blake, Goethe, Chaucer literary figures as Joseph Campbell And the larger public, having not and torn to pieces by his own used biblical myths as fundamental and Northrop Frye; specialists in yet learned other stories, now has hounds, might begin with the ques­ units of writing, almost in the same children's literature; and classicists no basic stories at all, but is con­ tion of whether the punishment way they used words. The point is like Albert Lord and Robert J. Len- demned to shallow literature." seems somewhat out of proportion that you can't make sense of huge ardon. The advisers suggest which — George Clack to the crime. Doesn't Actaeon sim­ portions of Western culture unless myths to dramatize and what tran­ "Mythology for Broadcast"/Everett C. ply find himself in the wrong place you understand the myths behind slations to consider. They review Frost, VOICES, Pasadena, CA/ at the wrong time? The commenta­ it." scripts before production and stand $20,000/1981-82/"Spider's Web Myth­ tor, however, might point out that Frost is an English professor cur­ ready to participate in the summar­ ology Project (Production: Radio Dra­ this is a myth about the inexorable rently on leave from his teaching izing discussions. Frost strives for a ma) "/WGBH Educational Foundation, forces of nature; the severity of the position at California State Univer­ balance between entertainment Boston, MA/$110,000/1983-85/Media goddess represents the severity of sity, Fresno. Searching for a job in values and scholarly authenticity in Programs (left) One version of The Rape of Europa by the French sculptor, Jacques Lipchitz, completed in 1938. (below) Another modem sculptor, Maria Josephy, portrays Prome­ theus in chains, contem­ plating the eagle who was sent by Zeus to pun­ ish him for bringing the gift of fire to humans.

A Reconciliation of Myth and Rationality The publication of Hans Blumen- tury's "scientific revolution"—in his reading of Freud, and finally his arrival of which appears to make it berg's Work on Myth (Arbeit am writers like Racine and Milton—and agonizing observation of the role obsolete—but rather in terms of its Mythos) in 1979 confirmed his posi­ it has continued into the twentieth played by "m yths" (of the "Fuhr- "terminus a quo," its point of de­ tion as a leader among the genera­ century with Joyce, Valery, Kafka, er," the "Master Race," "Blood parture, which is the problem that tion of German philosophers who Thomas Mann, and many others. and Soil," etc.) in Nazism, led him it seeks to solve. This problem, the have come of age since the second But theorists are still not sure to treat the subject more seriously hypothetical initial condition that world war. Blumenberg is so far what to make of this survival. Our and more systematically than any Blumenberg projects into the pre­ known in the English-speaking usual interpretations of science, philosopher had done before him. historic past (and into the present, world only through a few articles whether rationalist, empiricist, posi­ With his theory of "symbolic insofar as myth still has a function), and my translation of The Legitimacy tivist, or whatever, are all still very form s," he tried to do justice to he calls the "absolutism of reality": of the Modern Age (MIT Press, 1983), much in the Enlightenment tradi­ myth's internal coherence and a situation in which "man comes the work that first established his tion and imply a role for myth in power by giving it a status equal to close to not having control of the reputation in Germany. Work on the modern age that is restricted to those of knowledge, language, art conditions of his existence and, Myth may have an even wider the aesthetic imagination and is as­ and religion, as a fundamental hu­ what is more important, believes audience here than The Legitimacy of sumed to have no bearing on the man faculty that could not be dis­ that he simply lacks control of the Modem Age because it combines preeminent role of scientific ration­ missed in the eighteenth-century them ." Blumenberg calls this a the fields of literature, classical ality in our serious, practical lives. manner as mere fable, mental cob­ "limit concept," which while it studies, psychology and anthropol­ Those who concern themselves ex­ webs, or "prejudice." may never have been fully present ogy as well as those involved in the tensively with myth, such as liter­ While Blumenberg honors Cassir­ in reality is a necessary extrapola­ earlier work—philosophy, religion ary scholars, anthropologists and er's work on this problem, he has tion, a "limiting case," that makes and the history of ideas. psychologists, often tend toward one fundamental criticism of Cassir­ sense of what we do observe in In Work on Myth Blumenberg ad­ the other, Romantic extreme, inter­ er's theory: that he did not manage myth and in the rest of human his­ dresses a question that has bother­ preting myth's modern survival as to overcome the unstated assump­ tory. It is consistent, he says, with ed European thinkers since at least evidence of its being, in one way or tion that once science emerges, current theories of the origin of the late seventeenth century: Why, another, inherent in human nature myth, despite its autonomous dig­ man—of what happened when our with the triumphant advance of and even, given its seemingly nity as a "symbolic form ," is obso­ ancestors adopted an upright, bi­ secular, scientific rationality, have greater antiquity and ubiquity, of lete; that once the step forward pedal posture; were displaced from the old myths not simply evapo­ its being more fundamental to hu­ "from mythos to logos" has been the sheltering forest into the open rated into thin air? How is it that man nature than our "surface" taken, it can only be perverse to savannah; and found that their in­ they have maintained and even in­ rationality. turn back. If the relation of myth to stincts did not tell them how to creased their hold on (at least) our Blumenberg endeavors to over­ science is conceived in this way, cope with this new situation. Blu­ literary imaginations? The Enlight­ come this antithesis, to extract the the role of myth in modern litera­ menberg argues that the dramatical­ enment in general followed Descar­ truth from the Enlightenment and ture is indeed merely aesthetic, an ly enlarged horizon of what they tes in categorizing myths among from Romanticism by showing how entertainment unrelated to the real could perceive (and within which the "prejudices” that had to be scientific rationality and our on-go­ business of life; the mythical pat­ they could be perceived) would be, swept away in order to make room ing "work on" our inherited myths terns that Freud discovered in the for them, a situation of great ambi­ for the methodical development are not only not incompatible, but unconscious are, at most, relics of a guity, one in which some of their and application of scientific know­ are both indispensable aspects of personal and (perhaps) historical central instincts—such as fleeing ledge. Romanticism, particularly in the comprehensive effort that childhood that we have left behind; from immediate danger, an instinct Germany, reacted against this jetti­ makes human existence possible. Nazism, finally, is simply the in­ that had served to clarify many sit­ soning of tradition, and against the The last German philosopher comprehensible reversion before uations for them in the forest— unsatisfying permanent incomplete­ who addressed these questions at which Cassirer, in The Myth of the would be of little help. Our ances­ ness and tentativeness of science, length was Ernst Cassirer, in a ser­ State, stood aghast. tors "came close to not having con­ by calling either for a new mythol­ ies of books including the second What alternative is there to Cas­ trol of the conditions of their exis­ ogy or (more often) for a return to volume (1925) of his Philosophy of sirer's Enlightenment scheme of the tence" because they had become, our old, inherited myths. An ap­ Symbolic Forms and culminating in replacement of myth by science, as we remain, a species without a preciation and employment of The Myth of the State (1946). Cassir­ other than a Romantic synthesis of clearly defined biological niche. If mythical themes, which could (with er was a leading heir of Kant, the two, which would amount to a this situation were not dealt with in some effort) be interpreted as indi­ whose philosophy can be seen as denial of science's autonomy as a some radically new way, it would cating the possible return of an en­ the culmination (in the realm of "symbolic form"? Blumenberg pro­ produce the mental state that Blu­ compassing mythical world-view, theory) of the Enlightenment; but poses that we interpret myth not in menberg calls "Angst," which is had in fact been evident even in Cassirer's wide reading in the Ro­ terms of what it "came before"—its normally translated as "anxiety" the midst of the seventeenth cen­ mantic writers and in ethnology, "terminus ad quem," science, the but which is better rendered by the 6 psychiatrist's paraphrase, "intense shiver what any of them, but es­ place of—cannot perform the func­ neither of these is a goal toward fear or dread lacking an unambigu­ pecially this one, could have done tion of—the old stories. Knowledge which previous human history was ous cause or a specific threat." The with men if he had been alone and is only partial; the absolutism of directed, and the attainment of without any countervailing power. resulting behavior would be panic, reality requires something other which made the previous "stages” Poseidon is perhaps called 'earth- paralysis, or both. than knowledge alone to overcome obsolete. Still less was the scientific shaker' because the earth was Thus the "absolutism of reality" it, to put it behind us. And to say rationality that emerged as "theo­ thought of as floating on the sea. that it is "no longer a problem" for ry" with the Presocratic Greek is a fundamental threat, implicit in Earthquakes have always been thinkers the goal toward which a our biological nature and its rela­ men's most extreme experiences of us—that is, that our lack of a biolo­ tion to our natural environment, to insecurity.... The stories of those gical niche, our deficit of instinct, is previous, mythical stage was direc­ our capacity for survival. Our re­ who returned from the siege and no longer a problem for us (so that ted, and the attainment of which sponse to this challenge has been destruction of Troy are largely com­ we no longer have any need of made myth obsolete. the development of culture—of the posed of reports of misdeeds com­ myth)—would amount to the asser­ With this distinctive "philosophi­ "symbolic forms" that Cassirer de­ mitted by Poseidon through storms tion that we are definitively free of cal anthropology," then, Blumen­ scribed, but which he saw as a and shipwrecks; shipwrecks that our biological origins, a proposition berg postulates a kind of unity spontaneous expression of man's are domesticated by the role they we cannot expect to prove. among man's "symbolic forms"— play in the stories of the founding "nature" as the "animal symbol- This account of the function of namely, the unity of an all-encom­ of cities around the entire perimeter icum" rather than, as Blumenberg myth is not only persuasive in it­ passing problem that they address— of the Aegean. It is also a form of self, as Blumenberg expounds and which makes it unnecessary for interprets them, as a response to a the separation of powers that, illustrates it; it also has the crucial him to see the "form s" of scientific problem. And this problem, al­ while the god can still violently knowledge and myth as unified though our solution to it may be shake the life that goes on on terra advantage over the schema of the unique in the natural universe, is firma, he can no longer break it. step forward "from mythos to lo­ either by a teleological sequence nevertheless a consequence of He can delay Odysseus's return gos" that it does not assume the (one being destined to replace the man's biological nature as one living home, but cannot prevent it; that operation of an overall goal in the other, as in the Enlightenment in­ creature among others. return is the successful assertion of history of human consciousness— terpretation), or by some ultimate What is myth's role in relation to the world's familiarity, in opposi­ the end state of scientific rationality identity between them (a synthesis this problem? It is to overcome or tion to the god who embodies its that we now happily enjoy. Instead of the two or a subsumption of one forestall the Angst that the problem uncanniness. As a receiver of hu­ of such a teleology, which has only under the other, such as Romanti­ man sacrifices, Poseidon belongs to produces by "rationalizing" it into escaped the criticism of the modern cism dreams of). the stratum of that which has been empiricist and positivist critics of Having thus provided an alterna­ plain fear of specific, named agen­ overcome. This fact is represented cies, more or less personalized by the myth of Idomeneus, who teleology because it is buried so tive to our dominant, "Enlighten­ powers, whom we can address and during his return home from Troy deeply in their own thinking, Blu­ ment" conception of the relation (to that extent) deal with. It also believes that he can escape the menberg proposes that all human between myth and scientific ration­ helps that these powers, which are storm only by vowing to sacrifice to "symbolic forms" contribute, si­ ality, Blumenberg also presents a often (in the early stages) therio- the sea god the first person he en­ multaneously, to the single compre­ theory that provides an alternative morphic, are plural, and each has a counters, and then is prevented hensive endeavor of making human to our dominant, essentially Ro­ limited domain—there is a "separa­ only by a higher intervention from existence possible by overcoming mantic conception of the nature tion of powers" between them. offering up his own son. Such the problem of our biological non­ and process of myth itself. German And what is more, the stories say, myths, like the prevention of Abra­ adaptation, our constitutional deficit Romantic theorists like Schelling ham's obedience, are monuments these powers were more horrible, of instinct. The only goal that is op­ and Friedrich Schlegel saw myth as of the final leaving behind of ar­ erative in this process is that of and less predictable, "in the begin­ chaic rituals.... The consolidation of a kind of primeval, "original" en­ ning." Monsters like Medusa (who the state that the world has arrived overcoming the immediate prob­ dowment of mankind. The modern is like an emblem of Angst itself) at, as a 'cosmos,' and the restric­ lem—and that is an endeavor to disciplines that study myth, includ­ and the various Giants, and the he­ tion of every absolutism that arises which man addresses himself in ing literary studies, anthropology roes like Perseus and Heracles who in this process, are interwoven as every possible way at once. There and psychology, tend to reproduce overcome them, illustrate the latter antithetical motives in myth.... are, of course, important—in fact, this schema, by studying the way a aspect. But even among the Olym­ epoch-making—developments in given stock of myths is used in lit­ pian Gods, writes Blumenberg, the Blumenberg devotes several human consciousness that can be erature; or the way certain univer­ process of naming, "separating," chapters to this examination of the localized as subsequent to "the be­ sal structures may underlie the di­ and thereby limiting threatening ways in which myth serves to re­ ginnings." One would be the emer versity of myths in different cul­ powers is evident: duce the absolutism of reality, cre­ gence of the category of dogma in tures; or the way certain universal ating a "breathing space" in which the course of the development of experiences in the childhood of the Poseidon himself is a figure of un­ men can also deal with the practical monotheistic religion; another individual or of mankind function canniness and of doubtful goodwill, side of the challenge of survival, by would be that of modern "human in the unconscious and consequent­ of dangerous irritability. If his power explicitly goes back to an act cultivating the rational comprehen­ self-assertion," as Blumenberg calls ly in myth—in every case assuming of division of powers between the sion and control of specific natural it, with its concepts of the self, that the "pregnance" (in the Ges­ sons of Cronus, in which Zeus ac­ phenomena—in which we have matter, method, and progress. (The talt psychologists' sense)—the sharp quired the heavens, Hades the un­ made so much progress in the last former is examined at length in definition and the compelling derworld and Poseidon the sea, few centuries. But such comprehen­ Work on Myth, and the latter in The power—of the mythical motif is then the listener realizes with a sion and control cannot take the Legitimacy of the Modern Age.) But fully present from the beginning: that myth itself has no history. In myth to an end"—something that contrast to this, Blumenberg re­ he says can be understood only as minds us that the mature mythol­ the precise opposite of the hypo­ ogy that we know from Homer, thetical initial problem of the "ab­ Hesiod, the Ramayana, our inform­ solutism of reality," which gave ants in primitive cultures, and so rise to myth in the first place. on, must be imagined as the prod­ "Bringing myth to an end" would uct of tens of thousands of years of be the ultimate solution to that pro­ oral storytelling. Vastly greater blem which would be reached if the quantities of stories, figures, and "subject" possessed complete variations on earlier stories and fig­ sovereignty over reality. This is ures were tested on audiences up­ something that one can either flatly on whose active approval the story­ assert, in a "last m yth" like teller's success, perhaps even his Fichte's and Schopenhauer's story livelihood, depended. As a result of of the subject that is "the bearer of such testing, most of these were this universe, whose whole exist­ discarded as not having the impact ence is nothing but a relationship that the surviving material has. In to m e"; or else that one can try to other words, the stock of myth that demonstrate in practice by "bring­ has come down to us is the prod­ ing to an end" at least one great traditional myth. The latter is some­ uct not of a reverent process of The aging Faust in his study. handing down (such as comes into thing that Blumenberg describes play with written texts, and above think of them as atemporal, pri­ thus able to achieve an integration Valery as attempting in his Mon all with Scriptures) but rather of an meval) is not incompatible with and "balance" (Goethe's word) Faust, and Kafka in his "Promethe­ unsparing process of "natural selec­ their acquiring wholly new and un­ that had previously eluded him— us" sketch: to progressively deform tion," which Blumenberg in fact suspected aspects. though this accomplishment (which the story, by ignoring or reversing describes as the "Darwinism of made possible an amazing series of what had seemed to be its funda­ words." In this process the com­ Time does not wear away instances works, right up to his death, in mental patterns, to such an extent pelling power of mythical material of pregnance, it brings things out 1832, at the age of 83) was gained that it is barely recognizable as the was enhanced by the combined in them—though one may not add at the cost of a permanent aliena­ same myth, at which point (if one "work" of storytellers and their au­ that these things were 'in them' all tion, which had many painful con­ were completely successful) the tell­ diences. And it is this process, along. That holds, in the case of sequences, from the anti-Napole- ing and retelling that is the life of myth, least of all for extensions. rather than any innate and original onic German, nationalist sentiments the story would come to an end. When Albert Camus said of Sisy­ human endowment, that explains of nearly every young German after The challenge of "bringing myth phus that one should imagine him the pregnance and the durability of as being happy, the change of 1808. to an end" in either of these ways what has survived it—and inciden­ 'sign' was an increase in the visibil­ The internal compellingness, the is, Blumenberg says, one of the tally also explains the effective im­ ity of the myth's potential. When complexity, and the utter serious­ greatest stimuli to modern literary possibility of creating genuine Paul Valery 'corrected' the Faust ness of Goethe's lifelong "work and philosophical dealings with "new m yths," whether in one day story by suggesting that the only on" this myth and on the complex myth. In literature, it has produced or one lifetime. Cassirer, lacking way we could picture the one who of metaphors, ideas and experien­ some of the most fascinating works this conception of myth as the had once been tempted, now, was ces that were related to it for him of this century. In philosophy— product of a "Darwinism of as himself tempting Mephistophe- (work that Blumenberg traces German philosophy, in particular— words" and doubting the validity les, something became perceptible through a whole series of Goethe's it has produced a long and, at least that simply could not have been of the Romantic conception of it as plays, as well as his autobiogra­ to the outsider, bewildering se­ made up and added on, but instead an original, perhaps supernatural phy), all emphasize by contrast—if quence of attempts to occupy defin­ was irresistibly drawing near as the endowment, was too ready to ad­ classical demon figure grew increas­ it is necessary to emphasize itively the position of the "final mit that what the Nazis manufac­ ingly inferior. them—the manipulative motives of m yth." (To mention only a few of tured were genuine myths—so that the modern purveyors of "new these attempts, after Fichte's and the only authority that could be The latter half of the book is an m yths," including the Nazi Schopenhauer's: Nietzsche's "eter­ mobilized against them was reason extended case study of this kind of "m yths"—and the tragedy that so nal recurrence," Max Scheler's alone, which appeared to be faced process, the case being the Prome­ many people could be so deprived story of the god who becomes him­ with the task of repeating all over theus myth, from its earliest record­ of both genuine myth and genuine self through the world-process, again its original Herculean accom­ ed presentations, in Hesiod and rationality as to be influenced by Heidegger's "story of Being.") It plishment of suppressing man's Aeschylus, to the twentieth-century them. In addition, the example of does not appear that any of these "irrational" proclivity for myth. versions of Gide and Kafka. In con­ Goethe helps to demonstrate the attempts, either in philosophy or in Blumenberg, then, reorients not trast to the apparently simple re­ superficiality of the diagnosis of literature, has in fact brought myth only our understanding of the re­ corded history of the myth of Sisy­ Nazism that finds its roots, or the to an end. This is not surprising, spective roles of myth and rational­ phus, for example, that of Prome­ earliest symptoms of the potential Blumenberg says, because a defini­ ity, but also our understanding of theus presents an incredible variety for it, in German Romanticism. tive solution to the problem of the myth itself. These two simple but of aspects and interpretations in the Cassirer, by the way, was too intel­ absolutism of reality is just as much crucial corrections to our dominant course of these two and a half mil- ligent to make this diagnosis, a hypothetical "limiting case" as is models—the Enlightenment and the lenia. Blumenberg singles out which made it all the harder for the problem to which it would be Romantic—put much of our history Goethe for extended treatment in him to identify the agency that had addressed. Neither "end" of the into a sharply new perspective. A this context, because the Promethe­ reversed the "proper" course of history of myth is a state that can large part of Work on Myth (680 us myth runs through his works history in Germany.) For the myths be shown to exist or to have exist­ pages long in the original) is de­ and his life with a continuity (and legends and fairy tales) that ed in reality. But only by extrapola­ voted to illustrating in detail the matched only by the Faust myth. In the Romantics actually engaged ting such limits can we understand consequences of this new perspec­ a famous ode, written early in his with were, like Goethe's, genuine what we have done, and are still tive. Blumenberg's discussion of life, Goethe used Prometheus, the and time-tested, and were not ide­ doing, with myths. monotheism and the category of Titan who creates a race of men in ological substitutes for individual — Robert M. Wallace dogma, as they emerge from and defiance of Zeus, as a prototype of thought and responsibility. Mr. Wallace translated and wrote the differentiate themselves from poly­ his own defiance of his father and There is a special category of introduction to Hans Blumenberg's theism and myth, for example, of the bourgeois "gods" by choos­ "work on myth" that Blumenberg The Legitimacy of the Modern Age casts much new light on the Bible, ing a career as a poet. Later on, explores in the final portion of his (MIT Press, 1983). His translation of on Gnosticism, and on Christianity. that career was revived, after an ex­ history of the Prometheus myth Work on Myth will soon be published He also discusses many examples tended period of unproductivity and in a previous chapter dealing by MIT Press. of the "work on myth" that contin­ and self-doubt, by Goethe's meet­ especially with the Faust story (in ues in modern literature (and philo­ ing with Napoleon in Erfurt in Lessing, Goethe, Butor and Valery) “Translation of Hans Blumenberg's sophy and psychology), showing 1808, after which, Blumenberg ar­ and with the myth of the "Sub­ WORK ON MYTH"/Robert M. Wal­ how the durability of individual gues, Goethe "delegated" his Pro­ ject" in Fichte and Schopenhauer. lace, Ithaca, NY/$16,990/1982-84/ myths (which led Romanticism to methean role to Napoleon, and was He calls this the attempt to "bring Translations 8 Several years ago when the CBS Basel. Kahil, with staff assistance, News New York affiliate was pro­ has performed the work of a schol­ ducing a program on gossip colum­ arly Pantheon for the project, as nists, someone recalled Virgil's de­ conceiver of the Lexicon, creator of scription of Fama, or Pheme, the the structure for international par­ Greek personification of rumor. ticipation, friend and adviser to Searching for a classical representa­ contributors, and archaeologist la­ tion of Fama, a reporter scuttled boring at her own research. among New York's many cultural The Center sorts information institutions, all to no avail. Finally, from participating countries accord­ a Brooklyn Museum contact sent ing to mythological subject and him to Professor Jocelyn Penny assigns writers to compile research Small at Rutgers University. Reflec­ into articles for the Lexicon. Articles ting briefly, Small told him to stop are written in the language pre­ looking: There are no ancient exam­ ferred by the writer—English, ples of Fama, anywhere, she said. French, German, or Italian and no Small's response was so swift translation will be provided. Each and confident because, since 1973, article contains four parts: a she has been traveling to public A Pictorial Guide summary of the deeds and accom­ and private collections throughout plishments of the subject with a the United States, cataloging and citation of the principal literary photographing all the known an­ to Olympus sources for the legend; a biblio­ cient representations of classical graphy; the catalog of representa­ mythology. When completed, her tions; and a commentary which findings will constitute America's may include critical appraisal of contribution to the monumental other scholarly interpretation. Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae The Lexicon is being published in Classicae (LIMC), an international eight volumes, text and plates project to produce a pictorial dic­ bound separately, with entries ar­ tionary of classical mythology (clas­ ranged alphabetically. A ninth vol­ sical mythology here refers to ume will cover the documentation Greek, Etruscan, Roman and Ro­ obtained after publication of the man provincial legends). The Lexi­ earlier issues. Volume I, from Aara con will encompass works in all to Aphlad, published in 1981, fills media created in the classical world more than 1,600 pages and weighs and its peripheries between ca. 800 seventeen pounds (an unabridged B.C., when mythological scenes dictionary weighs only about ten). first appeared, and A.D. 400. It contains 900 plates and 3,000 Examples cited in the Lexicon are photographs. Small notes that an now held in some thirty-seven par­ inordinate number of mythological ticipating countries. Besides Euro­ figures have names beginning with pean, North African, and Middle A, especially important ones requir­ Eastern nations, these include ing long entries like Achilles, Australia, Brazil, Canada and the Aphrodite, Athena and Apollo. United States. Each country has a Eighty-seven scholars contributed center for compiling data. The U.S. articles to Volume I, among them, Center of the Lexicon is located at John Boardman of Oxford Univer­ Rutgers University where recently it sity, Erica Simon of the Wurzburg was made a "special collection" of University, and the late Pierre the University Library System and Devambez of the Louvre. Most Lex­ Penny Small was appointed director. icon entries will have a single (top) Dionysus and the Prior to the work done for the Dolphins, an Etruscan author, but a few articles on myth­ Lexicon, no one had surveyed the vase, ca. 510 B.C. ological figures with extensive le­ mythological iconography in Amer­ (center) Classical gends and numerous representa­ ican collections, Small says. Work­ kitsch shows Aphro­ tions will have more than one ing with an assistant, Small esti­ dite, emerging from author. For example, several writers mates she has already cataloged her oyster shell, will share the labors of Herakles. about 6,500 items. When the Lexi­ (bottom) Orpheus on Writing of Volume I in the Amer­ an Etruscan mirror con is completed she expects that ican Journal of Archaeology, reviewer (both fourth century number will reach 8,000. Brunilde Sismondo Ridgway of B.C.). Musing on time and eternity, Bryn Mawr College noted that John Keats asked of a Grecian urn, "Many of the objects illustrated are "What leaf-fringed legend haunts familiar; others are little known and about thy shape of deities and mor­ quite a few are previously unpub­ tals?" More prosaicly, the modern lished.... The entire scholarly com­ scholar looks at ancient objects and munity is indebted to Dr. Kahil for wants to know not only the legend, this superb contribution.” but the name of the artist, the style UNESCO has given financial and in which he worked, the origin of other support to the project. the object, and all the customs of Among the representations of the country it might reveal. gods, heroes like Achilles, and non­ To provide this information human figures such as winged Small obtains a photograph of each creatures and demons, Small has object showing a mythological fig­ found vases, statuary, textile frag­ ure and records a description of it, ments, funerary objects, jewelry, its provenance and all else that is mirrors, mosaics and gems. Some known about it. This material is are only fragments; others have sent to the Central Editorial Office been mended to show their original in Basel, Switzerland, which is di­ form but lack a piece or two; and a rected by Lilly Kahil, professor of few are almost pristine—marred on­ classical studies at the University of ly by an insignificant chip along an edge. One of the oldest pieces in the in ancient art, its outstanding fea­ expert on Etruscan funerary urns. The Grecian urns never cease to country is also at the Metropolitan ture, according to Small, is its Soon after the article was pub­ fascinate us partly because it is pos­ —a bronze figure believed to be "wealth of illustrations and the fan­ lished, she received a letter from an sible to see so many of them—col­ Herakles wrestling with the centaur tastically high quality of reproduc­ alumna who wrote that she had in­ lections in the United States and Nessus, the creature that ultimately tion." While bibliographies may be herited a planter her grandmother elsewhere are particularly rich in poisoned him. Like other early outdated by new findings and in­ had picked up in Boston around Attic vases, Small says—and be­ Greek art, it is unlabeled. terpretations, Small points out that the turn of the century. "Was it cause their art is narrative. Espe­ Not all ancient art is great art, "illustrations are primary sources, really an Etruscan funerary urn?" cially on later vases, the decoration Small makes clear. Most objects in irreplaceable and, therefore, exceed­ Small paraphrases. "Should she is a story to be "read.” A unique American collections can be com­ ingly valuable." take it in out of the rain?" It was representation at the Toledo Mu­ pared to modern kitsch, she says. Although the Lexicon aspires to an Etruscan vase, though not one seum of Art depicts the legend of Her favorite piece of "antique be as complete as possible, Small with a mythological decoration. Dionysus captured by pirates. Ac­ kitsch" is a small vase decorated says that it is only by chance that "Publishing this interview may cording to the story, the god with Venus in a flowing gown, some pieces and collections are in­ result in our hearing about two or turned his captors into dolphins in kneeling on an oyster shell and sur­ cluded. She tells of seeing a piece three more pieces," she said. order to make his escape. A series rounded by rosettes and cupids, a of flat, green glass only a bit larger Although all representations that of men transforming into dolphins bibelot she compares to decorated than a half-dollar in a collection too are cataloged by Small will not be and jumping into the waves marks boxes that people buy today. small to have a curator. She recog­ listed in the Lexicon, the center files this vase as a tribute to Dionysus. In comprehensiveness, the Lexi­ nized the decoration on one side as containing the complete entries are The ivy bough to the side, a sym­ con is without parallel. Most pre­ a representation of a Roman New open to scholars and other inter­ bol related to Dionysus, confirms vious surveys of classical art have Year's lamp. The lamps, she re­ ested persons, and non-publishable the association, says Small. been confined to one art form, such called, bear a picture of the Roman photocopies of photographs are Perhaps the most widely known as the archives on Attic vases gath­ goddess Victoria whose shield is available. In addition, the center is vase in the United States is the ered by J.D. Beazley. LIMC's engraved "Happy New Year." She purchasing the files of the Central Euphronius Crater (an antique vase model, the hitherto authoritative doesn't know the purpose of the Editorial Office. This means that with a wide mouth used for mixing Mythologische Lexikon (1884-1937), glass, but, she points out, an expert the index at Rutgers may be con­ wine and water) at New York's compiled by Roscher, emphasized in glass probably would not know sulted for information on mytholog­ Metropolitan Museum. The Crater literary rather than visual about Roman New Year lamps. She ical representations in all thirty- illustrates a story from the Iliad of conceptions. tells another story as example of seven participating countries. the Death of Sarpedon, a Lycian As a research tool, the Lexicon is the role chance has played in this ______—Anita Mintz prince slain by Petroclus. It is of use to anyone interested in country's contribution to the pro­ "Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae signed by Euphronius, a painter mythology, especially art historians, ject. Having worked for three sum­ Classicae"/Jocelyn P. Small, Rutgers and potter who lived between the classicists, classical archaeologists mers on a dig near Siena, she was University, New Brunswick, NJ/ late sixth and early fifth centuries. and numismatists. Containing a asked by the excavation director to $100,000 OR; $35,988 FM/1980-82/ In all, seventeen signed vases of survey of mythological literature write an article for a Bryn Mawr $65,000 OR; $21,000 FM/1982-84/ Euphronius are known to survive. and discussions of representations publication, which identified her as Research Tools

Celtic Mythology Therein are many queens like much of Yeats a full understanding allusions to Celtic mythology. But The need for such a handbook be­ Branwen and Guinevere; depends on a knowledge of the with assistance from an NEH fel­ came even more apparent to him And Niamh and Laban and Fand, who mythological allusions in the text. lowship, Celtic scholar James Mac- after he started collecting allusions could change to an otter or fawn, Most readers recognize Guinevere Killop is preparing a dictionary of in earnest. Unlike classical mythol­ And the wood-woman, whose lover was as the wife of the legendary King Celtic myth, legend, and folklore, ogy, some Celtic myths recorded in changed to a blue-eyed hawk; Arthur. Many do not know that which, with almost 7,000 entries, Old Irish and Old Welsh have And whether I go in my dreams by Branwen, which means "dark ra­ will do for Celtic studies what Sir never been adequately translated. woodland, or dun, or shore, Paul Harvey's Oxford Companion Or on the unpeopled waves with ven," is also a queen to the quasi- Although there has been more in­ kings to pull at the oar, historical King Llyr of Welsh leg­ and Sir William Smith's Smaller terest in these languages in recent I hear the harp-string praise them, end. In the next line the mortal Classical Dictionary have done for years, it was not until the nine­ or hear their mournful talk. women are being compared to a classics. The dictionary will include teenth century, when the work of names of mythical and historical —from "Under the Moon," supernatural temptress: Niamh of German philologists (among them In the Seven Woods the Golden Hair, a fairy lover from figures, summaries of legends and the Grimm brothers) produced the W. B. Yeats (1904) Celtic folklore, lures men to her myths, place names both real and first grammars and dictionaries, mound; after lovemaking, the help­ imaginary, and artifacts and ideas. that modern Celtic studies began. The volume from which this less victims return to their normal MacKillop, a professor of English Ancient Greek, by contrast, has en­ poem is taken bears the subtitle, world to find that they have aged at Onondaga Community College, joyed widespread and continuous "Being Poems Chiefly of the Irish three hundred years. Syracuse, New York, began work study for at least five centuries in Heroic Age." Although the verses There is currently no reference on the dictionary fifteen years ago the modern era, and Latin, for do not fail to compel readers, like work to guide readers through such when he was studying James Joyce. about twenty. 10 One of the reasons that Mac- Some of the greatest of the Celtic "Cuchulainn's Fight with the Sea" Fionn's men, but managed to es­ Killop's dictionary is such a time- tales are contained in the Ulster (1892); Yeats also reworked the cape by magic means. For a long consuming project, he says, is that cycle of Irish legend; this group, material in his play, Baile's Strand time Diarmaid refused to consum­ normative spellings have not been which was preserved in a high lit­ (1904). The tale was picked up by mate the union out of loyalty to established for many words. For erary genre from about the ninth MacPherson in his Poems of Ossian, Fionn, but eventually, taunted by some entries he has listed as many century, represents the heroic and and still survives in ballad form in Grainne, he succumbed. The lovers as twenty variant spellings. noble aspect of the tradition. A Nova Scotia. settled down and made their peace Although the language difficult­ short but widely known narrative Professor MacKillop himself has with Fionn, but eventually the bit­ ies have made the Celtic presence from the Ulster cycle, which is cited worked most closely with material ter Fionn caused Diarmid's death. peripheral, its mythology has been in MacKillop's dictionary under its from the Finn cycle, another group A number of scholars have com­ incorporated into the Arthurian leg­ title, "Aided Oenfhir Aife (The of tales based on the exploits of the mented on the parallel to the ends and works of a host of Eng­ Tragic Death of Aife's Only Son) great warrior Fionn mac Cumhaill Arthurian tale of Lancelot and lish writers from Chaucer and tells of the slaying of hero Cuchu- (Finn MacCool) and his followers. Guinevere, and the legend is pro­ Shakespeare through modern lainn's son by his own hand in Part of a vigorous oral tradition, the bably also the source of the Tristan times. The Gaelic world of magic combat. (The tale has a parallel in a Finn stories are prominent in the and Iseult story. has even found its way into con­ Persian narrative called Sohrub and repertory of today's Gaelic storytel­ In addition to recounting briefly temporary popular culture in Tol­ Rustum.) lers. MacKillop, who completed his the ancient tales and citing their kien's Lord of the Rings, Evangeline In the Celtic version, the men of doctoral dissertation on the Finn later appearances in literature, the Walton's The Children of Llyr, and Ulster were assembled on the shore legend, once thought the cycle to reference work will disentangle even Fleetwood Mack's rock hit when they saw a boy coming to­ be the controlling metaphor in Fin­ mythical and historical figures who "Song of Rhiannon." ward them in a boat of bronze with negans Wake. Although he has have the same or similar names. The original Celtic legends were gilded oars. The men were awe­ changed his mind about this in the One entry, for example, provides shaped and transmitted by bards struck at the boy's power to make light of recent scholarship, he seven different glosses for the char­ associated with the ancient druids. birds do his will. They sent two points out that Joyce is full of allu­ acter Aife. Not only is she known These early sources are the basis champions to challenge him, but he sions to Finn. "Even the title of as an amazonian chieftainess, but for great manuscript collections pro­ defied them both. Only Cuchulainn Finnegans Wake can be interpreted also appears as the third wife of duced by monasteries in the elev­ seemed equal to the task. As he set as a pun, 'Finn Again Wake,' Lir, the model through Hollings- enth and twelfth centuries. These out, his wife warned him that the which explains why 'Finnegans' head's chronicles for Shakespeare's documents, says MacKillop, are the boy was his son by an earlier liai­ contains no apostrophe," says Mac­ King Lear. Historical personages best sources of the stories for mod­ son, but Cuchulainn brushed aside Killop. are also included, especially those ern scholars, who have found in her prophecy and joined in combat One of the most famous stories who have become invested with them evidence suggesting both a for the honor of Ulster. in this cycle tells of the elopement myth. prehistoric common heritage with As they met, Cuchulainn de­ of Diarmaid and Grainne. Accord­ The dictionary also contains de­ India, and also an overlay and in­ manded to know the boy's name, ing to the legend, Grainne, a scriptions of artifacts, such as "fid- termingling of classical Greek and but his adversary remained silent. young woman, was betrothed to chell," a board game played by Roman culture. The two struggled on land and sea; Fionn (Finn), at this time an aging nobles in early Ireland. Entries for MacKillop has used this source finally, as Cuchulainn mortally widower. Unhappy with the match, real and imaginary place names will material as well as the oral tales speared the youth, the boy cried, on the night of the wedding feast assist scholars trying to distinguish still being circulated by Gaelic "That is what Scathach did not she administered a sleeping potion historical from mythical references. storytellers. "I'm drawing on teach m e." Cuchulainn immediately to the assembled guests and cast For example, MacKillop includes everything," he says. recognized the name of their old handsome Diarmaid under a spell "Brugh Na Boinne," which refers Interest in and knowledge of the teacher, and knew the boy to be compelling him to elope with her. in myth and legend to prehistoric Celtic heritage waned during the his son. Much of this story was us­ The guilty pair took refuge in a monuments in a region now known Renaissance. Although the lan­ ed by W. B. Yeats in his poem wood and were surrounded by as Bend of the Boyne in Ireland. guage was not formally studied un­ Important ideas and symbols are til the nineteenth century, fascina­ also cited, as in the entry for tion with the stories was rekindled "salmon." The fish was thought to in the eighteenth century, partly as be the repository of wisdom and the result of the famous literary embodied sacred significance for "hoax" of James MacPherson. Mac- the Celts. Students of comparative Pherson, a native of the Scottish religion will be assisted by entries Highlands and would-be bard and such as "Imbolc," a religious festi­ historian, claimed to have dis­ val of early Ireland which was sa­ covered and translated an ancient cred to the goddess Brigit. The di­ Celtic manuscript in the 1750s. The vinity merged pagan elements with long epic poems centering on the her Christian successor, St. Brigit. legendary warrior Fingal (Angli­ MacKillop's work has involved cized, Finn MacCool) and his son him in studies of Old and Modern Ossian (Oisin) were subsequently Irish, as well as Scottish, Gaelic denounced by Samuel Johnson and and Welsh. He emphasizes the de­ others as ''fakes." In fact, the stor­ tective work that must go into mak­ ies were loosely based on ballads ing each entry substantive and then in circulation in the oral tradi­ complete. "It took me four years to tion of the Highlands. Generously track down all the implications of embellished with MacPherson's one name," he said, "and that is own anti-Irish sentiment and Ro­ not an isolated example." MacKil­ mantic style, the poems neverthe­ lop's efforts will save other scholars less were read and admired by that kind of leg work. many. MacKillop estimates that it will Genuine translations followed take him another year to turn the with the nineteenth-century studies entries into a finished manuscript. of the languages as German and A number of American and foreign Irish scholars correctly identified presses have expressed interest in medieval manuscripts previously publishing the book when it is thought to be unimportant collec­ completed. _ perry Frank tions of rude dialect. In the twen­ tieth-century a number of books re­ “A Dictionary of Celtic Mythology"/ telling and critiquing the legends James J. MacKillop, Onondaga Com­ have appeared, and modern writers munity College, Syracuse, NY/$25,000/ from the Irish Renaissance on have The legend of King Arthur is drawn from Celtic mythology. Here, an illustration 1983-84/Fellowships for Independent borrowed from the tradition. shows the young king drawing forth his sword Excalibur from the stone. Study and Research 11 If toward the close of the sixteenth concern for the work of literature in century someone had asked what its own right. The influence of had made the greatest difference to Leavis in England, of Wimsatt, classical scholarship in the past Beardsley, and Cleanth Brooks in twenty-five years, the reply might this country was slow to impress well have been the works of Joseph classical scholars but eventually Justus Scaliger, Henricus Stephan- found a warm welcome among us, and Isaac Casaubon. Not be­ them, professionally trained as they a field trip to the Roman Forum. It cause Scaliger established the already were in close reading, alert is seldom that one is given such an chronology of the ancient world by to irony and ambiguity in Sopho­ equipment of almost every under­ acute and instantaneous vision of his research on Eusebius, not be­ cles and Virgil. Steele Commager's graduate, balanced by renewed ap­ the vistas opened up by a great cause Stephanus edited well over The Odes of Horace (1962) affords an preciation of what a knowledge of breakthrough in philology, but Pro­ one hundred Greek and Latin texts, early example of the fruitful appli­ historical context and generic tradi­ fessor Taylor was immediately many of which survived as the vul- cation of this method to Latin po­ tion contributes to the understan­ aware of the revolutionary implica­ gate edition for two centuries or etry, exemplary especially in avoid­ ding of literature. tions of the decipherment, and in­ more, and not because Casaubon ing the excesses of image-hunting A totally different approach, in deed its effects were among the laid the foundation of literary his­ for its own sake, which for a time which historical context was never most important to be felt in the six­ tory with his commentaries on a seemed to dominate articles and overlooked and developments in ties and early seventies, when its vast assortment of authors, but (as dissertations on Greek and Latin the history of ideas were inter­ impact on classical studies was Wilamowitz observed in his History poetry. Studies of recurrent pat­ preted in the light of all relevant -strongest. of Classical Philology) because these terns of imagery and symbolism data, was brilliantly demonstrated The truth about the Mycenaean three were chiefly responsible for without reference to the totality of by Bruno Snell in Die Entdeckung world as it was revealed in these the "transition from a potential to the work in question or to the exis­ des Geistes (1946); its English trans­ tablets from Knossos, Pylos, and an actual science of classical anti­ tence of other critical approaches lation by T. R. Rosenmeyer, The Mycenae forever shattered the be­ quity." Only in their time did the have now become far less frequent, Discovery of the Mind: the Greek lief that the Iliad and the Odyssey classics begin to be studied for their as have works obsessed with the Origins of European Thought, ap­ were faithful reflections of that own sake, rather than for what a Golden Section and other numerol- peared in 1953. This book remains world. Study of the tablets enabled knowledge of ancient sources might ogical fantasies. The very consider­ an inspiration and a model for scholars to reconstruct the oldest contribute to religion, philosophy, able benefits of the New Critical ap­ scholars who use philology to un­ Greek dialect yet known and to re­ law, medicine, or some other in­ proach have long since been ab­ cover patterns of thought. assemble tantalizing fragments of dependent pursuit. sorbed and now form part of the Still being pondered in the fifties the social and economic life of the After that, as classical scholar­ were the implications of Milman people who spoke it when the tab­ ship developed its innate potentiali­ Parry's revolutionary demonstration lets were accidentally baked in the ties, successive generations contri­ of the formulaic nature of Homeric fires that destroyed Knossos and buted new tools and new perspec­ verse (L'epithete traditionelle chez Pylos over three thousand years tives, responding—sometimes ea­ Homere, 1928) with all the profound ago. Many questions about that cul­ gerly, sometimes reluctantly, some­ questions it raised about the degree ture remain to be answered, but for times, it appears, not at all—to the of creativity possible in oral epic. lack of fresh material, progress has needs and interests of their own The ramifications of Parry's dis­ been very slow in recent years. time. With the wisdom of hind­ covery are still being investigated, Only if another archive room sight, it is easy to identify the but the rigidity of his theory has should be excavated—perhaps in books and scholars that made the been modified, and we now have a the Sparta of Menelaus and Helen essential difference in each of those more subtle appreciation of what or the mysterious palace in Boeotia eleven or twelve subsequent gener­ originality means in the oral tradi­ known only by the name of Gla— ations. Whether we can do so for tion, as well as a keener sense of can we hope for further enlighten­ the most recent past is another the differences between Homeric ment. What the decipherment question. What follows, although it epic and oral narrative poetry in meant to students of Homer, as reflects many conversations on the other cultures to which it has been distinguished from archaeologists subject with colleagues in this compared. (ideally there is no such distinc­ country and abroad, necessarily re­ Just before the start of our target tion), was the freedom to concen­ mains the limited view of one per­ period, the decipherment of Linear trate on Homer the poet, rather son (and, as it happens, one whose B and the proof that it recorded than Homer the pseudo-historian interests are primarily in Greek and Mycenaean Greek electrified the (as Chadwick has called him) and Latin literature). world of classics. The famous, cau­ to attend exclusively to the issues In the early fifties, just before tiously entitled article, "Evidence and values that define epic poetry. the start of the period we are con­ for Greek Dialect in the Mycenaean The consequences of this liberation sidering, the most influential trend Archives," by Michael Ventris and are still being vigorously explored. was the application to classical liter­ John Chadwick, was published in Almost simultaneously another ature, especially poetry, of the prin­ 1953. I have a vivid recollection of kind of liberation was taking place, ciples of the New Criticism, with its first hearing about it in the fall of heralded by one of the most influ­ insistence on close attention to the that year from Lily Ross Taylor, ential books of its time, The Greeks text, its scrupulous avoidance of then Professor in Charge of the and the Irrational by E. R. Dodds the biographical approach and the Classical School at the American (1951), a book notable in itself and 12intentional fallacy, and its exclusive Academy in Rome, in the course of in its effects. There is even a sense in which it served as proem to the part of the classics—Indo-European classical discourse of the next thirty linguistics, archaeology, anthropol­ years. In ancient rhetoric, the func­ ogy, the comparative study of tion of the proem is threefold: to myth—became independent and render the listener attentive, well- and outgrew their matrix, while disposed, and receptive. The Greeks what might be called quintessential further illustrates the intertwining I and the Irrational caught our atten­ classicism devoted itself more and have mentioned. tion by its paradoxical theme (irra­ more exclusively to textual studies. But feminist studies employ the while feminist criticism has contrib­ tional? the Greeks?); it rendered us When Paul Shorey in 1919 assessed full panoply of philological tools, uted perspectives that enable us to well-disposed not less by the feli­ the accomplishments of the preced­ including papyrology, which, of all interpret that world and our famil­ city of its style than by its challeng­ ing fifty years (since the foundation the ancillary disciplines, has made iar texts with greater sensitivity and ing insights, and it made us dociles, of the American Philological Associ­ the greatest progress in recent a more comprehensive vision of in the true Ciceronian sense—recep­ ation), it was in no way unnatural years. The impact of feminism on what was always there but was tive, willing to learn, open not just that he should identify Jebb, Wila- the classics has been particularly somehow never quite in focus be­ to what Dodds himself had to say, mowitz, and Gildersleeve as the profound and far-reaching, because fore. The scope of research in this but to certain contemporary trends preeminent classicists of England, its effects are sociological as well field and the application of a wide and systems of ideas developed Germany, and the United States, as intellectual. It is probably fair to range of scholarly techniques—often outside the world of classics. precisely because of their contribu­ say that classical studies have tradi­ with brilliant results—are demon­ What Dodds did was to explode tions to textual criticism. But in the tionally been more hospitable to strated by a recent collection of es­ the notion (oddly prevalent in the sixties and seventies of the twen­ women than many other academic says, Reflections of Women in Anti­ fifties even among classicists) that tieth century, classical scholarship disciplines, but the consciousness quity, edited by Helene P. Foley the Greeks were so persistently ra­ began to reclaim the branches that that was raised in the sixties and (1981). This book is especially grati­ tional as to appear (as he put it) had by now grown to such size as seventies in the wake of some of fying in its advance beyond the "lacking in the awareness of mys­ to dwarf the parent tree. the most fundamental social and simplistic treatment of women's tery and in the ability to penetrate Another notable tendency was political changes ever to transform roles that predictably characterized the deeper, less conscious levels of for some of these branches to inter­ American society was greatly some of the early explorations of human experience." To be so lack­ twine. Structuralism had after all needed in many university depart­ the subject. Because it is less than a ing was to be incapable of captur­ grown out of linguistics and an­ ments of classics, which had long decade since the appearance of im­ ing the attention of a generation thropology, and its early days ad­ been willing to train women, never portant pioneering studies (in no brought up on Freud and Jung, at­ dressed itself to mythology and to hire them. The presence of wo­ way simplistic) such as Sarah B. tracted to the primitive and bar­ folklore. Its classical adherents, first men on the faculties of such institu­ Pomeroy's Goddesses, Whores, Wives, baric, unimpressed by the Elgin in France (Vernant, Detienne, Vi- tions, the inexorable rise of young and Slaves (1975) and David M. marbles. From such a fate Dodds dal-Naquet), very recently in the women to prominence in the pro­ Schaps's Economic Rights of Women rescued the Greeks, and because in United States, continue to find fession in more than token num­ in Ancient Greece (1979), we have so doing he successfully exploited their most malleable material in bers, their greater access to publica­ here encouraging evidence of rapid the resources of anthropology and Greek myth and tragedy, and they tion (because of the almost univer­ and solid achievement in a field psychology, as well as the more draw conclusions that often have sal adoption by classical journals of that is sure to attract many classi­ familiar tools of philology, his more relevance to anthropology the process of blind refereeing) are cists in years to come. Sather Lectures encouraged classi­ and sociology than to literature. It but the most noticeable effects on Another influence already pene­ cists to open their minds to a is too early to tell whether what the sociology of the classics. trating every corner of the classical whole range of methods popular some classicists perceive to be the Intellectually, feminism has given world is that of the computer, elsewhere in the academic world. If current excesses of structuralist crit­ us a whole new world to study, which has made possible the ac- it is difficult to find in the last icism—the determination to find in twenty-five years any discovery of every myth extremes that must be such major and enduring signifi­ mediated, preferably with some ref­ cance for classics as those that erence to the raw and the cooked, dominated the preceding quarter of the uncritical assumption that sig­ a century, there has at least been nificant parallels exist even where an unmistakable trend toward the they must be invented to fit the increasing integration of classical Procrustean bed, above all the jar­ studies into the world of contem­ gon that frustrates instead of facili­ porary culture, a new receptiveness tating comprehension—whether to anthropology, structuralism and these excesses will be corrected by semiotics, comparative study of time and experience as were those myth, and the techniques of femi­ of the New Criticism twenty years nist criticism. Whether as cause or ago. But nothing is more obvious at symptom, Dodd's book deserves this moment than the heady fasci­ to be linked with this tendency nation exerted by the methods toward assimilation. identified with Foucault, Levi- Such a trend in fact constituted a Strauss, and Umberto Eco on some dramatic reversal of what had hap­ of the most lively and adventurous Photograph Photograph by Maria Josephy Schoolman pened around the middle of the members of our profession. That (above) The decipherment of Linear B electrified the world of classical scholarship several of them apply these methods nineteenth century. It was then with its proof of recorded Mycenean Greek. Walls of a Mycenean tomb. that several disciplines originally to the study of women in antiquity cumulation, organization, and re­ own discipline, we all know that attractive new translations. There steadily attracts more students). trieval of data on a scale un­ our continuing vitality as classicists was a certain specious charm in As for definitive scholarly texts dreamed of by Mnemosyne. From depends on our knowledge of this idea because many first-rate and commentaries, here too the re­ the first applications to such ob­ Greek and Latin and our posses­ translations, especially of Homer cord is more than respectable. To vious beneficiaries as linguistic sion of the texts that make classical and Greek drama, were being pro­ mention only one author—Hesiod analysis, stylistic studies, and the studies unique—something marvel­ duced in those years and were win­ —who was scarcely read thirty making of concordances, classicists ous and worthy to live forever, as ning substantial numbers of new years ago, but who is now intently have proceeded, no more hesitantly "Longinus" said. Werner Jaeger, readers for the classics. That good scrutinized by scholars using all the than most other humanists, to in­ whose publications on many as­ translations were available and that perspectives I have mentioned—an­ vent ever more ingenious ways of pects of ancient literature and phil­ making them brought professional thropology, structuralism, femin­ realizing the gigantic potentiality of osophy were prodigious in number recognition have constituted still ism, comparative mythology—both this monstrous tool. We now and influence, used to say that his another important trend in the thir­ Hesiod and his readers have been know, at least by report in the stature as a classical scholar would ty-odd years since Lattimore's Iliad well served by the prize-winning American Philological Association ultimately depend on his text of appeared in 1951. The high value text edited by Friedrich Solmsen Newsletter, about computer systems Aristotle's Metaphysics and his edi­ placed on translation as a scholarly (1970) and the massive commen­ for the preparation of critical edi­ tion of the works of Gregory of activity and our increased con­ taries by M. L. West on the tions, the availability of almost fifty Nyssa, an enterprise still being car­ sciousness of both the importance Theogony (1966) and the Works and Greek and Latin texts in machine- ried on by his associates. The fun­ and the difficulty of this activity are Days (1978), which bring to bear on readable form, and of course the damental index to the health of our closely related to our concern about the interpretation about Near Eas­ computerized Greek Thesaurus. If discipline is now, as it has always the classroom in the past quarter of tern religion, myth, and cosmogony there are some among us who still been, the production of texts and a century. And the apprehension now seen as definitive for under­ prefer the quill pen to the word commentaries that bring us a step felt at this time had the good effect standing how the two great poems processor, it is salutary to remem­ closer to the reality of the authors of leading teachers to develop an came to be what they are. ber that in our house there have al­ we study, the production also in unprecedented number of success­ The Platonic Socrates says in the ways been many mansions. every generation of students who ful courses in the classics in tran­ Protagoras that the rhetors are like Quantification, which is not the can read these texts and interpret slation, which continue to extend bronze pots that keep ringing when same as computerization, although them afresh for themselves and for the influence of the ancient they are struck, but say nothing often computer-assisted, is trans­ their own time. Because the rela­ authors. new, and thus resemble books that forming branches of our profession, tion between scholarship and teach­ But the situation of Latin and cannot reply to their readers' ques­ especially the historical and archae­ ing is close and reciprocal, it is Greek in the classroom has im­ tions. This of course is part of Pla­ ological. Here too the need to dis­ worth mentioning the influence of proved dramatically in recent years, to's demonstration that written criminate between the mere accum­ the classroom on the study in re­ thanks in part to the introduction works are inferior to dialectical ex­ ulation of data and their sophisti­ cent years. of intensive elementary courses that change as modes of instruction, cated use is self-evident, or should In the late sixties and early allow students to proceed with no and Plato is correct, but if we can be. To ask the right questions, and seventies, there were moments of loss of time to the authors they no longer engage in dialogue with not just the questions to which panic induced by the disappearance hope to read. Not only has the Socrates himself, the writings of there are numerical answers is the of Latin from many high schools, APA Textbook series survived as it Plato are better—much better—than fundamental challenge. whence Greek had long since fled, was originally conceived, but it has nothing. Our task is to put the Now and then I have compared and the declining enrollments in lately been supplemented by the right questions to these and all our the classics to a tree with many college classes as well. I remember Bryn Mawr Commentaries, first on other texts, and there will be an­ branches. Perhaps it would be ap­ a time in the early seventies when, Greek authors, now, with a new swers. Throughout its history, clas­ propriate to conclude by consider­ as editor of the American Philologi­ grant from the National Endow­ sical philology has existed to frame ing the roots. No matter what stim­ cal Association Series of Greek and ment for the Humanities, on Latin the right questions. ulating trends from the outside Latin College Textbooks, I was writers as well (best of all on a se­ —Helen F. North world we respond to and, if we re­ asked whether we should not aban­ lection of medieval Latin authors, Ms. North is Centennial Professor of spond intelligently, convert into don the original languages and de­ desperately needed to accommodate Classics at Swarthmore College where sources of renewed vigor for our vote all our energies to providing a branch of classical studies that she has taught since 1948.

Titian's celebrated painting of Venus and Adonis. 14 Deadline in For projects Please note: Area code for all telephone numbers is 202. boldface beginning

DIVISION OF EDUCATION PROGRAMS—Richard Ekman, Director 786-0373 Central Disciplines in Undergraduate Education—Susan Resneck Parr 786-0380 Improving Introductory Courses—Lyn Maxwell W hite 786-0380 April 1, 1984 October 1984 Promoting Excellence in a Field— lohn Walters 786-0380 April 1, 1984 October 1984 Fostering Coherence Throughout an Institution—Susan Resneck Parr 786-0380 April 1, 1984 October 1984

Humanities Instruction in Elementary and Secondary Schools—Carolynn Reid-Wallace 786-0377 May 15, 1984 January 1985

Exemplary Projects in Undergraduate and Graduate Education—Blanche Premo, lohn Strassburger, Charles Meyers, Peter Patrikis 786-0384 May 15, 1984 January 1985 Teaching Materials—Blanche Premo 786-0384 May 15, 1984 January 1985 Nearest FHumanities Programs for Nontraditional Learners—Gene Moss 786-0380 April 1, 1984 October 1984 DIVISION OF FELLOWSHIPS AND SEMINARS— Thomas Kingston, Director 786-0458 Grant Fellowships for Independent Study and Research—Maben Herring 786-0466 June 1, 1984 January 1, 1985 Fellowships for College Teachers—Karen Fuglie 786-0466 June 1, 1984 January 1, 1985 Application Constitutional Fellowships—Maben Herring and Karen Fuglie 786-0466 June 1, 1984 January 1, 1985 Faculty Graduate Study Grants for Historically Black Colleges and Universities— Eric Anderson 786-0462 March 15, 1984 January 1985 Deadlines Summer Seminars for College Teachers—/eanette Beer 786-0463 Participants: 1984 Seminars March 1, 1984 Summer 1984 Directors: 1985 Seminars March 1, 1984 Summer 1985 Summer Seminars for College Teachers on Campuses of Historically Black Colleges and Universities—Eric Anderson 786-0462 Directors: 1985 Seminars March 1, 1984 Summer 1985 Summer Seminars for Secondary School Teachers —Ronald Herzman 786-0463 Participants: 1984 Seminars March 1, 1984 Summer 1984 Directors: 1985 Seminars April 1, 1984 Summer 1985

Centers for Advanced Study—David Coder 786-0466 February 1, 1984 Fall 1985 Summer Stipends for 1985—loseph Neville 786-0466 October 1, 1984 Summer 1985

DIVISION OF GENERAL PROGRAMS—leffrey W allin, Director 786-0267 HUMANITIES PROJECTS IN:

Media—Richard Huber 786-0278 Children's Media July 30, 1984 April 1, 1985 Regular Media Projects July 30, 1984 April 1, 1985 Museums and Historical Organizations— Gabriel Weisberg 786-0284 April 30, 1984 January 1, 1985 Special Projects—Leon Bramson 786-0271 Program Development (including Libraries) February 6, 1984 October 1, 1984 Youth Projects June 15, 1984 January 1, 1985 Younger Scholars Program September 15, 1984 June 1, 1985

DIVISION OF RESEARCH PROGRAMS—Harold Cannon, Director 786-0200

Intercultural Research—Marjorie Berlincourt 786-0200 February 15, 1984 July 1, 1984 Basic Research Program— lohn Williams 786-0207 Project Research—Gary Messinger 786-0207 and David Wise 786-0207 March 1, 1984 January 1, 1985 Archaeological Projects—Gary Messinger 786-0207 March 1, 1984 January 1, 1985 Research Conferences—Eugene Sterud 786-0207 February 1, 1984 October 1, 1984 Travel to Collections—Eric luengst 786-0207 September 15, 1984 January 1, 1985 Humanities, Science and Technology—David Wright 786-0207 NEH HST Projects March 1, 1984 January 1, 1985 NEH-NSF EVIST Projects February 1, 1984 October 1, 1984

Research Resources—leffrey Field 786-0204 Access—leffrey Field 786-0204 June 1, 1984 April 1, 1985 Preservation— leffrey Field 786-0204 June 1, 1984 April 1, 1985 Publications—Margot Backas 786-0204 May 1, 1984 October 1, 1984 U.S. Newspaper Projects—Pearce Grove 786-0204 August 15, 1984 April 1, 1985

Reference Works— Dorothy Wartenberg 786-0210 Tools—Crale Hopkins 786-0210 October 1, 1984 July 1, 1985 Editions-,Helen Aguera 786-0210 October 1, 1984 July 1, 1985 Translations—Susan Mango 786-0210 July 1, 1984 April 1, 1985

DIVISION OF STATE PROGRAMS—Donald Gibson, Director 786-0254 Each state establishes its own grant guidelines and application deadlines: therefore, interested applicants should contact the office in their state. A list of those state programs may be obtained from the Division of State Programs.

OFFICE OF PROGRAM AND POLICY STUDIES—Armen Tashdiman, Director 786-0424

Planning and Assessment Studies—Arnita lones 786-0420 March 1, 1984 October 1, 1984

OFFICE OF CHALLENGE GRANTS—lames Blessing, Director 786-0361 May 1, 1984 December 1, 1983

15 THREE FOR ONE: CHALLENGE GRANTS AT NEH

In December the Endowment an­ guage and literature, a chair in nounced the award of $22 million philosophy, an annual humanities in new Challenge Grants. This new symposium, a visiting humanities set of awards brings the total of En­ professorship, and the Centro de dowment Challenge awards to Estudios Hispanicos. more than $180 million since the The size of grants awarded in program began in 1977; and be­ this most recent cycle reflects the cause NEH requires Challenge variety and needs of the institu­ Grant recipients to raise three times tions applying. The smallest offer the federal offer in new or in­ was for $20,000; the largest, $1 mil­ creased contributions, the total lion. Institutions may apply for as amount the program has generated little as $2,000 in federal funds or or will generate for the support of recognize the quality of the institu­ fessional staff, and educational as much as $1.5 million. The total institutions and organizations work­ tions that receive them and chal­ publications. number of applications received by ing within the humanities ap­ lenge them to make to private do­ The Endowment also provides the Endowment was 210; so, one proaches three-quarters of a billion nors the same strong case for sup­ Challenge Grants to media organi­ out of every three applications re­ dollars. port they made to the Endowment. zations and stations working in the ceived funding. The Challenge Grant program is For the first time, the Endow­ humanities. KUON-TV, which is af­ The process of applying for an the only broad-based institutional ment accepted in this past round of filiated with the University of Ne­ Endowment Challenge Grant is de­ support program within the En­ review applications from institu­ braska, the flagship station of the manding, and the best applications dowment. Its purpose is to assist tions that had received a Challenge Nebraska Educational Television reflect thorough involvement not recipients in sustaining or attaining Grant in the early years of the pro­ Network, received a Challenge only of an institution's develop­ a high quality of resources, pro­ gram. Ten of the seventy-five new Grant for $500,000. ment personnel but of the academic grams, and activities within the hu­ offers were made to previous hol­ One of the ten second-time staff and governors or trustees as manities by encouraging substantial ders of an NEH Challenge Grant. awards, a $200,000 Challenge well. Often the planning for an ap­ long-range financial and program The Endowment recognizes that fi­ Grant, went to the American plication will begin as much as a planning and—through the actual nancial stability is a relative condi­ Academy in Rome, an advanced year in advance of the Endow­ dollars offered—by achieving finan­ tion and that many earlier recip­ study and research center for ment's spring deadline for the pro­ cial stability. ients can make compelling cases for American scholars doing work in gram. Many applicants have been The seventy-five new grants rep­ further funding. Applicants for a classical, medieval, Renaissance, successful upon reapplying to the resent the variety of eligible institu­ second-time award must wait at and modern Italian culture. The program after initial rejection of an tions and organizations traditionally least two years between the formal Academy maintains a 95,000- application and consideration of the supported within the program. close of the first grant and the ap­ volume library, and the funds will comments of reviewers. The En­ Twenty-two grants went to four- plication deadline for a second. help initiate a $2 million endow­ dowment encourages its Challenge year colleges; fifteen awards to mu­ Each must also address additional ment for the operations and acqui­ applicants to request readers' seums; eight to historical societies evaluative criteria that depend on sitions of the library. evaluations. or historic properties; seven to pub­ testimony about the first grant and One of the five professional or­ The next application deadline for lic libraries; seven to advanced the need for a second. ganizations and societies receiving a Challenge Grants is May 1, 1984. study centers; five to professional Typical of the kind of Challenge Challenge award was the American The Endowment heartily encour­ organizations and societies; four to Grant awarded to four-year colleges Association for the Advancement of ages potential applicants to discuss universities; three to media organi­ is the offer of $300,000 to Gettys­ Slavic Studies located at Stanford plans with staff in the Office of zations; one to a university press; burg College in Pennsylvania. As University. With the $125,000 offer, Challenge Grants. Although sub­ one to a two-year college; and two part of a major $14 million cam­ the association will raise an addi­ mission of a draft proposal is not a to other types of nonprofit organi­ paign to build the college's endow­ tional $375,000 to endow the gener­ requirement, most applicants find zations working in the humanities. ment, Gettysburg will establish a al operations of the society. In ad­ staff review of the draft immensely The quality of Challenge Grant restricted fund for humanities facul­ dition to sponsoring workshops helpful in clarifying plans and mar­ applications, the sophistication of ty and humanities curriculum de­ and conferences for Slavicists, the rying needs to the goals of the pro­ the review process, and the credi­ velopment; it also will support its association publishes Slavic Review gram. Applicants need not think bility of the awards have matured Civil War Studies program. and the Bibliography of Slavic and they must make a trip to Washing­ over the seven-year history of the Representative of a smaller hu­ East European Studies. ton to benefit from counsel: The program. In addition to describing manities organization receiving an Both small and large public li­ Challenge Grants staff usually dis­ financial and programmatic needs, award is the Morgan County Foun­ braries seek Challenge Grant funds cusses draft applications and plans and in addition to presenting com­ dation in Madison, Georgia. Thirty for the support of humanities re­ with applicants by telephone. In or­ pelling fund-raising plans, success­ years ago the foundation, which sources. A grant of $250,000, der to provide sufficient time for ful applicants must describe the was established by citizens inter­ matched by $750,000 in new and counsel, all draft applications content and quality of existing hu­ ested in local history who wished increased private contributions, will should be sent to the Office of manities programs and convince re­ to provide collections and programs allow the Tulsa City-County Library Challenge Grants, Room 429, Na­ viewers that funds will have a posi­ for a local audience, saved the ol­ System to establish an acquisitions tional Endowment for the Human­ tive impact on both programs and dest school building in the county endowment for humanities mate­ ities, 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, financial resources. The Challenge and remodeled it as a local cultural rials and to support through en­ N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506 Grant review panels include hu­ center. The center now houses a dowment income programs and (202/786-0361) before March 15, manities scholars, institutional ad­ small history museum, galleries, services in the humanities. 1984. Those interested in receiving ministrators and program execu­ and an auditorium where a variety One of the largest Challenge a copy of the program's 1984 Guide­ tives, development personnel, rep­ of performances, symposia, and lec­ Grants in this cycle ($975,000) was lines should call or write the En­ resentatives from both corporate tures occur. A $150,000 Challenge awarded to Syracuse University. dowment's Office of Public Affairs. and private philanthropy, and trus­ Grant will develop an endowment The university will endow several — Thomas S. Kingston tees of nonprofit enterprises. Con­ to underwrite expanded humanities notable programs within its human­ Mr. Kingston is the former director of sequently, Challenge Grants both programs, museum operations, pro­ ities division: a chair in English lan­ the Challenge Grants Program. 16 1983 NEH CHALLENGE GRANTS

California Florida Illinois Iowa

American Association for the Advancement of Institute for Religion in an Age of Science, Chicago Public Library, IL; Amanda Rudd. Drake University, Des Moines, IA; Kent Dove. Slavic Studies, Stanford U., CA; Dorothy Atkin­ Rollins College, Winter Park, FL; Karl Peters. NEH: $1,000,000/Total: $4,000,000. To assist in NEH: $187,500/Total: $750,000. To establish an son. NEH: $125,000/Total: $500,000. To establish NEH: $24,000/Total: $96,000. To develop a the renovation of the Goldblatt Building for a endowment for the support of three humanities an endowment for the operations of the associa­ revolving fund for the support of the scholarly new central library; to build an endowment for professorships, faculty development and re­ tion in order that it may secure a long-term abil­ journal, Zygon, a publication forum for scholars preservation and acquisitions; and to support search within the humanities, and continuing ity to serve the field of Slavic studies. and professionals exploring relationships be­ temporary staff to catalog special collections. program development for the undergraduate Hoover Institution, Stanford, CA; Dennis Bark. tween the humanities, sciences, and religious University of Chicago, IL; Hanna Gray. NEH: core curriculum. NEH: $900,000/Total: $3,600,000. To increase the studies. $1,000,000/Total: $4,000,000. To increase an en­ Dubuque County Historical Society, IA; Jerome endowment restricted for the institution's library Miami-Dade Community College, FL; Horace dowed fund for faculty development in the Enzler. NEH: $200,000/Total: $800,000. To com­ and archives in order to maintain humanities ac­ Traylor. NEH: $700,000/Total: $2,900,000. To graduate humanities divisions; to endow plete permanent exhibitions and capital im­ quisitions; and to conserve, maintain, catalog, establish three rotating professorships in the undergraduate curricular development; and to provements at the Woodward Riverboat Mu­ and provide automated access for the library's humanities; and to establish a restricted endow­ endow a preservation and acquisitions fund for seum; to restore the Mathias Ham House, a his­ materials emphasizing twentieth-century social, ment for faculty and program development in humanities resources in the Regenstein Library. toric house museum; to develop a permanent cultural, philosophical, and economic history. the humanities. University of Chicago Press, IL; Morris membership and fund-raising program; to pur­ Mount St. Mary's College, Los Angeles, CA; WMFE-TV, Community Communications, Inc., Philipson. NEH: $250,000/Total: $1,000,000. To chase storage and archives equipment; and to Barbara Becker. NEH: $300,000/Total: Orlando, FL; Cynthia Link. NEH: initiate an endowment restricted for the publica­ establish an endowment for museum $1,200,000. To establish an endowment restric­ $100,000/Total: $400,000. To establish an endow­ tion of new titles in the humanities and for sub­ operations. ted for visiting scholars, guest lectureships, and ment for the production, acquisition, and pro­ sidizing the publication of humanities journals. Luther College, Decorah, IA; Wilfred Bunge. faculty development programs in art apprecia­ motion of humanities programming. NEH: $350,000/Total: $1,400,000. To develop an tion and history, ethics, history, languages and endowment for the college's Paideia program, literature, music appreciation and history, and a core humanities program; endowment income philosophy. Indiana would support the position of program direc­ Whittier College, CA; Jerry Laiblin. NEH: Georgia tor, a director of writing and the writing $210,000/Total: $840,000. To establish an en­ laboratory, library resources in the humanities, dowed chair in English language and literature, Butler University, Indianapolis, IN; J. Brooks and faculty development for teachers of the to endow faculty development for members of Georgia Southern College, Statesboro; Leslie Jones. NEH: $350,000/Total: $1,400,000. To program. humanities departments, and to endow the pre­ Thompson. NEH: $100,000/Total: $400,000. To renovate and modernize a humanities classroom Morningside College, Sioux City, IA; Miles servation and development of the college li­ establish two restricted endowments: one for building, Arthur Jordan Memorial Hall; to en­ Tommeraasen. NEH: $300,000/Total: $1,200,000. brary's John Greenleaf Whittier Collection. library acquisitions in the humanities; one to dow a humanities convocation series; and to en­ To assist in the renovation of the college's li­ support a faculty development program for dow a professorship in the humanities. brary, and to provide controlled climate space teachers in the humanities. Conner Prairie Pioneer Settlement, Noblesville, for the library's special collections. Connecticut Clark College, Atlanta, GA; Florence Robinson. IN; Pauline Jontz. NEH: $250,000/Total: NEH: $300,000/Total: $1,200,000. To endow and $1,000,000. To create an endowment for opera­ continue a faculty development program for tions of the living history museum; to renovate humanities teachers; to purchase equipment for and repair existing exhibit buildings; to support Kansas Fairfield University, CT; Stephen Weber. NEH: the humanities resource center; to endow a new development and membership depart­ $250,000/Total: $1,000,000. To establish a general humanities professorship; and to increase ments; and to assist in collections acquisitions, Kansas State Historical Society, Topeka; humanities endowment for the support of humanities resources in the college's Woodruff cataloging, and restoration. visiting lecturers, a writing center, faculty Library. Marilyn Foster. NEH: $395,000/Total: Indiana University, Bloomington; Elaine Sloan. $1,575,000. To assist in the construction of per­ development, library acquisitions and equip­ Madison-Morgan Cultural Center, Madison, NEH: $750,000/Total: $3,000,000. To establish ment, and the college's interdisciplinary studies GA; Elizabeth Reynolds. NEH: $150,000/Total: manent exhibitions at a new museum site and two endowments for the university's library three historic sites; to renovate office space, program. $600,000. To increase an existing endowment in system: one for complementary acquisitions of Thames Science Center, New London, CT; Jane order that the museum and cultural center may museum laboratory, and collection storage humanities materials; another for materials space; to renovate the former main museum for Holdsworth. NEH: $90,000/Total: $360,000. To support an enlarged professional staff, expand preservation and restoration. assist in the renovation of exhibition and office interpretive programs in local history, and in­ a research and conservation laboratory; and to space, and to develop endowed reserves for the crease educational publications. develop an endowment for conservation, pro­ support of humanities programming and the grams, and staff development. support of staff. - Wethersfield Historical Society, CT; C. Douglas Alves. NEH: $125,000/Total: $500,000. To sup­ port renovation of the Welles Museum and Louisiana Visitor Center, restoration of the nineteenth- century Hurlbut House for educational program­ ming, and to increase the Society's endowment WYES-TV, New Orleans; Vincent Saele. NEH: for operations. $156,250/Total: $625,000. To establish an endow­ ment for the acquisition and production of humanities programming. District of Columbia Maryland Capital Children's Museum, Washington, D.C.; Ann Lewin. NEH: $300,000/Total: $1,200,000. To assist in renovation and repairs to the Calvert Marine Museum, Solomons, MD; Ralph museum to make it an energy-efficient structure, Eshelman. NEH: $150,000/Total: $600,000. To to support initial: fund-raising costs, and to convert and renovate the present main museum develop a general endowment for the museum's building; to assist in the establishment of a humanities exhibitions. development office; and to initiate an endow­ Columbia Historical Society, Washington, ment for museum operations. D.C.; Perry Fisher. NEH: $300,000/Total: $1,200,000. To assist in the second phase of renovation for the Society's headquarters, the Heurich Mansion; to increase the operating en­ Massachusetts dowment to provide staff for the Society's ar­ chives and library; and to start a financial development office. Berkshire Museum, Pittsfield, MA; Gary Burger. NEH: $100,000/Total: $400,000. To Council for Basic Education, Washington, D.C.; renovate storage, work, and administrative areas A.Graham Down. NEH: $150,000/Total: $600,000. To expand and improve the Council's in the present museum; to assist in the primary journal, Basic Education; to improve reinstallation of permanent exhibits in climate- controlled galleries; and to augment the present long-term financial stability through the operations endowment. development of a public friends group; and to Five Colleges, Inc., Amherst, MA; E. Jefferson build a cash reserve fund for operations and (opposite) The American Academy in Rome, (above) The Columbia Historical publications. Society, Washington, D.C. 17 Murphy. NEH: $360,000/10131: $1,440,000. To establish an endowment for faculty develop­ ment for teachers within the joint programs of the Five Colleges consortium (Amherst, Hamp­ Oregon shire, Smith, Holyoke, and the University of Massachusetts); to convert to machine-readable form the humanities catalogs of the five-member Mt. Angel Abbey and Seminary, St. Benedict, libraries. In the next issue... OR; Martin Pollard. NEH: $44,400/Total: National Center for Jewish Film, Waltham, MA; $177,600. To support the costs of restoring, Sharon Rivo. NEH: $125,000/Total: $500,000. To cataloging, and preserving a collection of rare establish an endowment for film conservation medieval manuscripts and books in the programs, including underwriting for the posi­ seminary's scholars' library.______■ tion of a resource coordinator and researcher. ANNOUNCING Ventress Memorial Library, Marshfield, MA; Dennis Corcoran. NEH: $71,000/Total: $284,000. To support the acquisition of humanities THE 1984 NEH FELLOWSHIPS! Pennsylvania materials; to furnish, equip, and renovate a por­ tion of the library for the Daniel Webster Historical Center. College Misericordia, Dallas, PA; Frank Villa I Tatti, Harvard U., Cambridge, MA; Pasquini. NEH: $50,750/Total: $203,000. To Patricia Benfari. NEH: $140,000/Total: $560,000. SIDNEY HOOK, the 1984 NEH Jefferson Lecturer, pro­ renovate the college's humanities classroom and To develop an endowment for the operations office areas; to purchase instructional equipment of a new annex to the research center's scholarly filed in an article by Irving Kristol • Nathan Glazer on for humanities programs; and to establish an en­ library for the study of the Italian Renaissance, dowment for humanities faculty development. located in Florence, Italy. the Attack on the Universities • David Sidorsky on John Easton Area Public Library, PA; Quentin de Streel. NEH: $100,000/Total: $400,000. To move Dewey and Pragmatism special collections into a renovated, climate- controlled stack area; to endow a full-time Minnesota curator and archivist for the humanities collections. Fort Ligonier Memorial Foundation, Ligonier, Carleton College, Northfield, MN; Catherine PA; Martin West. NEH: $210,000/Total: Day. NEH: $958,000/Total: $3,382,000. To in­ $840,000. To create an education and collections crease the endowment for programs in the program endowment to assure continuing Department of English; and to support in part historical education programs and a curator of the renovation and expansion of the college property, the Cudner-Hyatt house. education as well as the permanent care of the library. Staten Island Children's Museum, NY; Mindy collections. College of St. Catherine, St. Paul, MN; Anita Duitz. NEH: $100,000/Total: $400,000. To com­ Gettysburg College, PA; Gary Lowe. NEH: Pampusch. NEH: $100,000/Total: $400,000. To plete renovation of the new museum site at the $300,000/Total: $1,200,000. To develop a initiate an endowed library fund for humanities New York Snug Harbor Cultural Center; to begin an en­ restricted endowment for support of humanities materials; to endow a humanities forum; and dowment for the support of interpretive faculty and curriculum development and for to establish an endowed humanities programs. support of the Civil War studies program, in­ professorship. American Academy in Rome, New York City; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City; cluding a professorship, lecture series, and Gustavus Adolphus College, St. Peter, MN; Sophie Consagra. NEH: $200,000/Total: Mary Campbell. NEH: $250,000/Total: senior scholar's seminar. Thomas Emmert. NEH: $250,000/Total: $800,000. To initiate a permanent library endow­ $1,000,000. To establish an endowment for ar­ Ludington Public Library, Bryn Mawr, PA; $1,000,000. To develop an endowment to sup­ ment for acquisitions, binding, repairs, and chives and education programs, make capital David Roberts. NEH: $340,000/Total: $1,360,000. port a new integrated sequence of library supplies supporting research in classical improvements, and retire a building debt. To expand, renovate, and reorganize the pres­ undergraduate core humanities courses; endow­ ent library facilities; to establish an endowment studies and archaeology. Syracuse University, NY; Gerson Vincow. NEH: ment income would support faculty and course for humanities acquisitions and development Canal Museum, Syracuse, NY; Vicki Ford. $975,000/Total: $3,900,000. To endow programs development, library acquisitions for the pro­ NEH: $75,000/Total: $300,000. To retire the personnel. within the humanities division including a chair gram, and guest lecturers. Morris Arboretum, Philadelphia, PA; William mortgage for the museum's canal warehouse in English, a chair in philosophy, an annual sym­ designed to house new exhibitions; for renova­ posium, a visiting professorship, teaching interns, Klein, Jr. NEH: $250,000/Total: $1,000,000. To tion of the warehouse and the Weighlock and the Centro de Estudios Hispanicos. renovate the Widener Educational Center; to Building; to initiate an endowment for museum establish a humanities program endowment for Nebraska programs. interpretation of landscaping and architecture Foreign Policy Association, New York City; in the context of cultural history. William Schaufele, Jr. NEH: $250,000/Total: North Carolina Murrysville Public Library, PA; Denise Sticha. KUON-TV, Lincoln, NE; Jack McBride. NEH: $1,000,000. To increase the operating endow­ NEH: $50,000/Total: $200,000. To expand and $500,000/Total: $2,000,000. To support equip­ ment in order to support personnel for the renovate the present library building in order ment replacement and to establish endowments association's publications program and for the National Humanities Center, Research Triangle to improve collections development and for local humanities program production and education program. Park, NC; Charles Blitzer. NEH: accessibility. future equipment purchases for humanities Institute of Society, Ethics and the Life $1,000,000/Total: $4,000,000. To build an Swarthmore College, PA; David Fraser. NEH: programming. Sciences, Hastings-on-Hudson, NY; Daniel operating endowment for the humanities pro­ $512,500/Total: $2,050,000. To establish through Lincoln City Library Foundation, NE; Carol Callahan. NEH: $500,000/Total: $2,000,000. To grams and humanities fellows of the scholarly an endowment three faculty fellowships and one Connor. NEH: $100,000/Total: $400,000. To initiate an operations endowment and fund­ research center. humanities professorship to be awarded on a establish an endowment for the programs and raising compaign; endowment income would North Carolina Museum of Life and Science, revolving basis. operations of the Heritage Room which houses support research and fellowships programs Durham, NC; William Sudduth. NEH: Wilson College, Chambersburg, PA; Harry special collections devoted to Nebraska literature within the humanities at the center. $45,000/Total: $180,000. To establish an Buck. NEH: $45,000/Total: $180,000. To support and history. ______Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY; James operating endowment and for the support of a a new core undergraduate curriculum, endow Shuart. NEH: $450,000/Total: $1,800,000. To new development department within the humanities acquisitions for the library, and in­ initiate an operations endowment for the univer­ museum, which interprets science and itiate new fund-raising efforts. New Jersey sity's Cultural Center which sponsors interna­ technology in a cultural context. tional scholarly conferences on various aspects Old Salem, Inc., Winston-Salem, NC; R. Arthur of the humanities; to renovate a portion of the Spaugh, Jr. NEH: $750,000/Total: $3,000,000. To Virginia library for a permanent home for the Center. initiate an endowment for the operations of a Chinese Language Teachers Association, South Leo Baeck Institute, New York City, NY; Fred living history museum devoted to the Moravian Orange, NJ; John Young. NEH: $20,000/Total: Grubel. NEH: $300,000/Total: $1,200,000. To settlement of North Carolina; to support a Old Jail Foundation, Albany, TX; Betsy Koch. $80,000. To initiate an endowment for the sup­ establish a cash reserve for operations of the in­ historic restoration building program; and to in­ NEH: $50,000/Total: $200,000. To endow the port of all operations of the scholarly society, stitute which sponsors a scholarly library and itiate financial development efforts.______including the publication of the association's archives, public lectures, and exhibits specializ­ position of a museum conservator who will train journal and newsletter. ing upon the modern history of German­ volunteers and oversee the restoration and Upsala College, East Orange, NJ; Edwin Titus. speaking Jewry. preservation of the museum's humanities NEH: $150,000/Total: $600,000. To repair and Marymount College, Tarrytown, NY; Jane Ohio collections. refurbish humanities classrooms and humanities Forni. NEH: $108,900/Total: $435,600. To sup­ faculty offices; to endow a lecture program in port humanities faculty development pertaining comparative religion; and to initiate a library en­ to a new core undergraduate program; to im­ Cincinnati Fire Museum, OH; Robert Harrison. Texas dowment for humanities resources. prove humanities resources in the library; and NEH: $80,000/Total: $320,000. To eliminate the to modernize the modern foreign language debt incurred in renovating the fire house laboratory. museum and opening new local history Hampden-Sydney College, VA; Daniel Poteet. The Museums at Stony Brook, NY; Susan Stitt. exhibitions. NEH: $400,000/Total: $1,600,000. To support the New Mexico NEH: $350,000/Total: $1,400,000. To increase the Summit County Historical Society, Arkron, college library which also serves the general endowment for museum operations; to renovate OH; Jeffrey Smith. NEH: $125,000/Total: public by establishing an endowment for special the administration building; and to support in­ $500,000. To augment the operating endowment collections, by equipping and developing a com­ The Archaeological Conservancy, Santa Fe, itial long-term development campaign costs. of the historical society, which operates two munications center, and by acquiring and NM; Mark Michel. NEH: $250,000/Total: Rochester Museum & Science Center, NY; historic properties—the Stone Mansion and the cataloging humanities materials. $1,000,000. To establish an operating endow­ Richard Shultz. NEH: $575,000/Total: Brown House. ment and to assist the conservancy to build its $2,325,000. To renovate and enlarge the development program for the identification and museum building for collections devoted to preservation of major archaeological sites. regional history, cultural archaeology, and an­ Washington St. John's College, Santa Fe, NM; Edwin thropology; to develop an endowment for Oklahoma Delattre. NEH: $500,000/Total: $2,000,000. To building operations. defray an accumulated operating deficit in pro­ Scarsdale Historical Society, NY; Eda Evergreen State College, Olympia, WA; Patrick portion to humanities programs and courses; to Newhouse. NEH: $40,000/Total: $160,000. To Tulsa City-County Library System, OK; Patricia Hill. NEH: $25,000/Total: $100,000. To endow initiate an endowment for faculty development complete mortgage payments, repay loan debts, Woodrum. NEH: $250,000/Total: $1,000,000. To the Willi Unsoeld Seminar Fund, which will and research within the humanities; to support start a program endowment fund, support fund­ create an endowment for the support of the support a new humanities program bringing new financial development efforts. raising costs, and create an emergency fund in library's humanities collections, programs, and visiting lecturers to the college to complement order that the society may open a new historic services. curricular offerings. 18 Vijayanagara, “the city of victory," Two or three dynasties are believed was the capital of the ancient Hin­ to have occupied the throne of du kingdom that held sway over Vijayanagara. For 200 years the em­ south India from the mid-four- Gods & Kings pire maintained its hold over south­ teenth to the mid-sixteenth century ern India while its rulers waged un­ and, during its 200-year existence, ceasing war with the Muslims who successfully turned back Muslim in­ threatened from the north. vasions from the north. The his­ in Imperial India The end came in 1565. An enor­ tory, literature, and particularly the mous Vijayanagaran army—com­ religious and mythological symbol­ prising, according to some ac­ ism of the Hindu culture is a valu­ counts, 703,000 infantry, 32,600 able guide to interpreting archaeo­ horses, 551 elephants, not to men­ logical discoveries made here. tion a group of 100,000 civilians The site of the capital, the right that included merchants and prosti­ bank of the Tungabhandra river tutes—was completely destroyed by where it runs through a rocky a Muslim force that had artillery gorge, was chosen with an eye for at its command. The city was military strategy. The landscape is sacked by the Muslim armies and wild and strange; the city is domi­ abandoned. Before long, it was a nated on the north by barren gra­ ghost town inhabited by tigers and nite outcroppings through which elephants and known as the Hampi the river flows. ruins, from the name of the nearby Even before the foundation of village. Even in its ruined state, Vij­ the city and the vast empire it ayanagara continued to attract pil­ ruled, which stretched from the grims and tourists. Arabian Sea across the Indian pen­ Today the village of Hampi is insula to the Bay of Bengal, the site the base camp for an ambitious ex­ was sacred. It is still considered a cavation project to restore the for­ holy place. mer glory of the city undertaken by Vijayanagara was soon known as the government of Karnataka, the one of the wealthiest cities in India. modern Indian state that includes Travelers marveled at Vijayana- Mysore. Complementing the work gara's grandeur, its magnificent of excavation is a documentation temples and the apparently inex­ project directed by archaeologist/ haustible riches of its kings. A Por­ anthropologist John Fritz and archi­ tuguese traveler writing in the early tectural historian George Michell, sixteenth century reported that the who head a team of volunteers that city was as large as Rome. includes architecture and archaeol­ Much of Vijayanagara's wealth ogy students from Indian as well as came from the Portuguese trade. Its American, British, Australian, and markets were stocked with mer­ other foreign universities. chandise from Lisbon and Peking: Working with professional sur­ silk from China, ivory from Alexan­ veyors, architects and photograph­ dria, rubies from Peru. The Portu­ ers, the documentation team is fo­ guese brought velvets, damasks, sa­ cusing on the royal center of the tin, and taffeta, and took back Or­ At Vijayanagara, scholars capital. There the aim of the project muz horses. Vijayanagara was seen believe architecture and is to record, describe and analyze as the most opulent kingdom in the urban morphology con­ in meticulous detail all visible fea­ East. "The pupil of the eye hath spire to link the king tures of the city. This includes sys­ never seen a place like it," said a with the legendary figure tematic mapping, surveying and of Rama (left). This long Muslim envoy. measuring, as well as analyzing The Vijayanagaran rulers were row of domed chambers apparently housed the ceramic fragments found on the also patrons of literature and the state elephants. surface. Although not directly in­ arts who made the city a center of volved in the actual excavations, Dravidian nationalism and art as the team works with the Indian De­ well as Brahmin studies and learn­ partment of Archaeology and Mu­ ing. In their capital, scholars, phi­ seums of the government of Karna­ losophers, religious teachers and Sj taka and lives in the official site saints flourished. The city was also l/l camp. a center of religious orthodoxy, fa­ Vijayanagara provides a unique mous for its splendid ceremonial opportunity to study medieval Hin­ observances and festivals. du town planning. Interpreting the 19 symbolic meaning of the city's de­ cept of dharma also implies justice, lieve, architecture and urban mor­ worship, is positioned on a north- sign involves a range of scholarly morality, and religious merit. phology conspire to link the king south axis that divides the palace inquiry that includes sculpture, ar­ The plot hinges on the adven­ with the legendary figure of Rama. and in fact the entire city, into two chitecture, inscriptions, literary tures of Rama as he rescues his First, the very terrain in which the halves. These halves symbolized sources, and myth. "In attempting wife Sita from demons. Rama is the city is set is identified with impor­ some of the basic distinctions of the to understand the meaning of Vij­ son of a king and the rightful heir tant episodes in the Ramayana. The earthly world: between the do­ ayanagara," write Michell and to the throne of Ayhodia, but he is hills around Vijayanagara are today mains of men and women, between Fritz, "w e have found mythical ac­ unjustly exiled from the city as a the home of tribes of monkeys public activity and the more in- counts about the activities of the result of intrigues by one of his whom the local inhabitants believe ward-looking world of the house, hero-king-god Rama very useful in father's many wives. In his forest are descendants of the monkeys even between the right and left explaining the urban morphology exile, Rama is joined by Sita, who who helped Rama triumph over the side of the body. that our documentary work has dis­ is herself the model of the selfless demon Ravna. One of the rocky At the focal point of the royal closed. Vijayanagara, we believe, and faithful wife, just as he is a outcroppings to the east of the city enclosure is the temple. Rama is was a 'cosmic city.'" symbol of conjugal devotion. In the is supposedly the place where thus at the heart of the king's pal­ The city conforms to a perceived course of many adventures, Rama Rama waited while the monkey- ace, which surrounds the temple divine order; the urban plan is it­ defeats a host of evil demons, in­ king Hanuman, set off to find Sita. like the inner circle of creation. At self infused with a cosmo-magical cluding the sister of Ravna, the At the summit, a temple dedicated Vijayanagara, Rama sits oh the cos­ significance; and the activities of king of the demons, who in turn to Rama commemorates the event. mic axis that is "p rior" to the king and court that took place with­ seeks revenge. Ravna abducts Sita Sculpture carved on boulders scat­ earthly world of distinctions, but it in it were consciously patterned on and carries her off to Lanka, his tered on the site depict Rama and is in fact the king's power that ra­ a celestial model. The Vijayanagara capital in the south. other characters in the epic. diates outward to impose order. kings exploited myth to link them­ During his travels southward in * * * Michell and Fritz are convinced selves to divine sources of power. search of Sita, Rama meets the king The Vijayanagara kings did not that the placement of the temple They chose a site charged with of the monkey tribes and his ad­ hesitate to compare themselves di­ and the road system radiating from mythological associations, used viser, Hanuman, who becomes rectly with Rama—the ideal king— it, as well as the series of concen­ myth to account for the origin of Rama's devoted helper. Hanuman nor to equate their capital with his tric paths of circumambulation the dynasty, and identified their has extraordinary, almost superna­ celestial abode, Ayodhia—the city around temple, palace and city, capital with the mythical abode of tural powers—he can fly and symbolizing the perfect moral convey the notion that the sacred Rama—the hero-god who exempli­ change his shape at will—and he is world in which there is no danger space of the god and the terrestrial fies the knightly virtues of honor, one of the major figures in the or spiritual pollution. The scholars space of the king were one. Archi­ courage, and humanity, attributes epic. Hanuman ultimately finds have found early inscriptions and tecture, sculptural ornamentation the kings naturally wished to Sita, while Rama waits in Kishkin- epigraphic sources that explicitly and urban design worked together ascribe to themselves. da the home of the monkey tribes. draw the parallel of Vijayanagara with myth to reinforce the legiti­ To understand the symbolism Finally Rama and Sita are re­ and Ayodhia. macy of the king. that informs the design of Vijayana­ united and return to the city of The design of the city reinforces Ceremony also emphasized the gara, one must look at the Ramay­ Ayhodia, where they ascend the the relationship, particularly in the meaning of the design, particularly ana, the great Indian epic. The throne. Rama's reign at Ayhodia is royal center where the king's do­ the manhanayami festival held Ramayana tells the story of the god seen as the model of a just, peace­ main impinges physically on the every October. This festival is Vishnu, who manifests himself on ful, and prosperous golden age in domain of the god. The Ramachan- thought to have celebrated Rama's earth in the form of the knight which every member of society re­ dra temple, where an aspect of worship of the goddess Durga and Rama to fight evil and maintain ceives the' benefits of a perfectly Rama was worshiped, and which his request for her help in battle. dharma—the divine order of nature ordered community. probably served as a state chapel The Vijayanagara king probably that supports the cosmos. The con­ At Vijayanagara, the scholars be­ where the king himself came to worshiped Durga as Rama did. On the tenth day of the festival, the king rode out with an image of Durga to review his troops. The army was then consecrated by the goddess. The ceremonial occasion did double service as a political event. This would be a critical moment for the king, with all his supporters gathered at the city before embark­ ing on expeditions of war or pil­ grimage. Like Rama, the king had to complete the ceremonies before he too could vanquish his enemies. The mythical episodes in the Ra­ mayana, coupled with the rites of the manhanayami, were crucial for the Vijayanagara kings in imbuing their capital city — and beyond it their empire — with the powers and glory of the gods. Archaeologist/anthropologist John Fritz and architectural historian George Michell of the University of New Mex­ ico have been documenting the excava­ tions at Vijayanagara with NEH sup­ port. This article is based on their reports.

"Vijayanagara: The Royal Center and the Hindu Concept of Kingship"/John M. Fritz, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque/$65,000/1982-84/Basic Research/Translation and Critical Edition of the Valmiki Ramayana"/ Robert P. Goldman, U. of Califor­ nia, Berkeley/$54,955/1980-83/ This building in a blend of Islamic and Hindu styles may have been the residence of the king or the military commander. Translations 20 STATE OF THE STATES: Texas Myths

Within the borders of Texas, one can travel a straight line for more than 800 miles across territory that embraces magnificent pine and hardwood forests, coastal swamp­ lands, sweeping grassy plains, sun­ baked deserts and jagged moun­ tains. Texas historian T.R. Fehren- bach described the prospects facing its earliest Anglo settlers: "A man could see far and smell winds that coursed down from Canada across a thousand miles of plains. There was an apparently endless, rolling that "relates the particular to the vista north and west and south. universal, that places a particular The small woodchopper, with an story in the context of a much big­ axe and a couple of brawny sons, ger story," says Veninga. could catch a scent of landed em­ Previous Committee-supported The legendary Texas pire and dream of possibilities to projects have yielded reams of ma­ cowboy, Jacob Kuechler on com e." terial on topics ranging from the Horseback, a drawing by In such a land of possibility he­ history of blacks in Houston's Friederich Richard Petri. roes moved easily, taking, over Fourth Ward and the culture of time, various shapes expressive of Mexican-American border towns to dominion: the Texas Ranger, the the status of women in Texas battles won and enemies routed. cowboy, the oilman, and—the history. Others, however, give evidence to space-age incarnation of mastery— During the past decade, the Tex­ failure, to battles lost, to the dark Alamo" became the rallying cry the astronaut. These dominant as Committee has sponsored a ser­ night of the human spirit." several weeks later when an out­ myths live still in Texas, transmit­ ies of studies on the history of the From the very beginning, land gunned force of Texans led by the ted through well-recognized mod­ cowboy, most recently a sympo­ has dominated Texas myth and wounded Sam Houston captured ern vehicles. The state's two Na­ sium managed by the Institute of consciousness. The first great Anglo Santa Anna and crushed his army tional Football League teams are Texas Cultures in San Antonio. But pioneer-hero was Stephen F. Aus­ in the conclusive Battle of San the Oilers and the Cowboys. Its all the cowboy studies, Veninga tin, who brought 300 families into Jacinto. baseball teams are named after an notes, "have pointed to the need Mexican-held Texas in 1821, the That battle gave Texans the land, early hero, the Rangers, and a later for a deeper study to explore what year Mexico proclaimed itself free and a new myth of supremacy. one, the Astros. role the myth of the cowboy has from its Spanish overlords. By "As the occupations of planter, Myth springs, however, not only played in our culture, how it has 1829, about 1,200 Anglo families farmer and rancher grew," notes from the dominant but from the helped shape the values of our had received land grants from Mex­ Veninga, "so did attitudes and val­ several cultures that create history. society." ico totaling 40,000 acres of land in ues associated with being Texan: a To analyze the power of myths and Older Texas history books, he central Texas. frontier individualism, a peculiar to discover their sources in the says, contain a "traditional his­ But Mexican leaders soon became form of self-sufficiency, a proud­ Lone-Star State, the Texas Commit­ tory—a story mainly out of the alarmed by the increasing number ness, a confidence and a definite tee for the Humanities has launch­ Anglo-American experience," Yet of settlers from the United States, belligerence toward old enemies, ed an NEH-supported project of in the past three decades, scholar­ and they halted Anglo immigration Mexicans and Indians." lectures, symposia and study aids. ship and art have presented "non- to Texas. Relations between Anglo These values were embodied in These activities are intended to pro­ traditional" histories centered on settlers and Mexican officials be­ the Texas Ranger, the legendary vide resources and a framework for Mexican-Americans, Afro-Ameri­ came steadily worse until 1834, troopers created by Austin in the projects, which the committee ex­ cans, Native Americans and other when a Mexican soldier and politi­ 1820s to "range" over the country­ pects to fund in the coming year, groups. "We want to explore the cian named Antonio Lopez de San­ side to intercept raiding Indian par­ that will help "to unravel the role myths of those other groups, and ta Anna overthrew Mexico's na­ ties. Packing their famous six-shoot­ of myth in modern Texas life," ac­ how much they permeate society," scent constitutional government ers, these rough-and-tumble men cording to Texas Committee Execu­ says Veninga. "One can't really and made himself dictator. The represented the Texans in conflict tive Director James Veninga. Myth, understand the history of a nation next year, American colonists re­ with their Indian and Mexican Veninga notes, "involves stories or a state without knowing those volted against Mexico in a short but neighbors. that display the character of a peo­ primary myths and how they bloody war that proved a breeding A "non-traditional" version of ple, that demonstrate cultural val­ function." ground for heroes and myths. this conflict has been handed down ues, that point to deep-seated fears Recent scholarship has proposed Joseph Campbell says the hero through the border ballads or corri- and failures, aspirations and that myths can be critical to a na­ "is the man of self-achieved sub­ dos of the Mexican-Americans in victories." tion's health by providing ideals mission." In the case of several southern Texas that usually recount Building on a ten-year history of and models that serve to underpin Texas heroes, the legendary Alamo injustices suffered by Hispanic na­ support for hundreds of local and society. As author Joseph Campbell became their place of submission to tive Texans, such as, land confisca­ statewide studies that have inter­ put it, myth "is the secret opening the notion of a free people in an in­ tion or exploitation as cheap labor. preted Texas history for the general through which the inexhaustible dependent, free republic. Texas One of the best known of these public, the Committee has planned energies of the cosmos pour into rebels including William B. Travis, corridos, "The Ballad of Gregorio the investigations of myth as means human cultural manifestations." Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie de­ Cortez," was the subject of an to "synthesize" previous scholar­ Myths generally revolve around he­ fended the old Spanish chapel for NEH-funded television drama and ship, to place community and eth­ roes, but in Texas "there is a dou­ two weeks against Santa Anna's is the sort of local legend that the nic history in the broader national ble edge," notes Veninga. "Most numerically superior troops, and Texas Committee believes has na­ context. It is time, the Committee Texas myths substantiate success fought to the death even when es­ tional significance. believes, to encourage scholarship and accomplishment, a feeling of cape was possible. "Remember the The ballad recalls one of the 21 Texas mythic heroes: the cowboy. in the modern world; the role of Veninga notes the cowboy came myth in Texas history and culture; equipped with what became formative myths among the four "icons," including his six-shooter, major groups inhabiting Texas in spurs, roundup, cattle brand, and a the mid-nineteenth century (Anglo- solitary way of life that continues to Americans, Native American, Span­ fascinate both those inside and out­ ish/Mexicans and Afro-Americans); side the state. "Say Texas any­ and how myths are transmitted and where," says historian Fehrenbach, changed over time. The essays will "and people will answer cowboy." be among presentations by experts A new myth was created on Jan­ on myth scheduled for an all-day uary 10, 1901, when prospectors symposium on March 3, 1984, at discovered the state's first big oil Austin. well at Spindletop near Beaumont. The committee already has be­ A new "oil culture" emerged with gun work on a handbook, "A its own icons, though ownership of Guide to Identifying and .Interpret­ the land and its riches again was ing Texas Myths," intended to be paramount. "Wildcatters and of use to those who seek committee roughnecks, equipment suppliers funding for research projects on and whores, followed the boom," Texas mythology and culture, and notes Veninga. "The phenomenon to scholars generally. Veninga says fed upon and reinforced some of the handbook will outline basic the­ the oldest values and characteristics ories of myth and the function of of the Anglo settlers of the 1820s: myth, and trace the "primary" individualism, fierce pride, oppor­ Texas myths: the Alamo, Texas tunism, power, materialism." Rangers, cowboys, oilmen, and as­ In recent decades, yet another tronauts. It also will describe some hero—the astronaut—has of the myths associated with emerged from Texas to grapple groups other than Anglo- with the new frontier of outer Americans. space. During the 1960s, Texas be­ The Texas Committee also plans came the permanent headquarters a second symposium in Austin of the federal government's man­ March 30-31 centering on mythic ned spacecraft center, later re­ elements in Texas literature. In ad­ named the Lyndon B. Johnson dition to the handbook, the com­ Space Center. In all of these mittee plans to produce a book of most famous manhunts in Texas twelve years in jail and six more cases—from Stephen Austin to the provocative essays concerning what history. In the summer of 1901, a trials, Cortez was pardoned. men with the Right Stuff—the key Texas myths reveal about such top­ Ranger sheriff and his translator The incident and the myth that has been "the subduing of forces, ics as male and female roles, the went to the farm of Gregorio Cor­ grew from it have significance not conquering a land and then milking family, power and wealth, com­ tez to question him about a stolen just for the citizens of Gonzales, it for what it's worth," notes Ven­ munity, politics, nature and the horse. The translator's confusion Texas, but for the nation as a inga. "By and large, this has been "good life." The published mater­ over the Spanish word for "horse” whole. the basic frame of reference and the ials will be collected at the Texas and the word for "mare" escalated "The ballad is about the applica­ basic attitude of the state." Humanities Resource Center in into an argument. The sheriff shot tion of legal justice in a bicultural At the heart of the Texas Com­ Austin, where they will be made Gregorio's brother; Gregorio shot setting," says Veninga, "an issue mittee's investigation are a series of available to museums, libraries, and and killed the sheriff. that goes to the core of our national scholarly essays it has assigned on historical societies throughout the For eleven days, Cortez eluded a experience, to the problem of main­ four major topics: The role of myth state. — Francis J. O'Donnell posse of 300 Texas rangers, a taining a just and fair legal system David-and-Goliath feat celebrated in in the midst of a pluralistic society. the ballad: "The United States will be a They let loose the bloodhound dogs; stronger nation if the citizens of They followed him from afar. Karnes County, Texas, know of the Correction But trying to catch Cortez accomplishments of Henry, Was like following a star. William, and, yes, Alice Jam es," All the rangers of the county Veninga continues, "but it will also A computer error caused us to list the wrong Were flying, they rode so hard; be a stronger nation if the citizens amounts in Humanities (Vol. 4, No. 6) for the follow­ What they wanted was to get of Boston know of the terribly un­ ing Exemplary Awards in the States. The correct The thousand-dollar reward. fortunate but admirably brave life amounts and grant titles are as follows: And in the county of Kiansis of Gregorio Cortez." They cornered him after all; After the Civil War, the Texas The Committee for the Humanities in Alabama, Though they were more than three Rangers joined forces with the U.S. Shakespeare: The Theatre in the Mind. $74,670. hundred; Army to conquer the western fron­ Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and He leaped out of their corral. tier, eliminating various Indian Public Policy, Doing Justice: Literary Texts, Professional tribes in the process. Then the Major Sheriff said, Values and the Judicial System. $59,480. As if he was going to cry, "The Texans had very definite "Cortez, hand over your weapons; ideas as to how Indians should be Nebraska Committee for the Humanities; Kansas We want to take you alive." treated," one historian observed. Committee for the Humanities; North Dakota Then said Gregorio Cortez, "They easily convinced themselves, Humanities Council; and the South Dakota Commit­ And his voice was like a bell, for example, that the Texas Rangers tee on the Humanities, Chautauqua '84: Jefferson's "You will never get my weapons knew best how to whip Mexicans Dream and the Plains Experience. $115,375. Till you put me in a cell." and exterminate Indians, and their impatience with the clumsy and Oregon Committee for the Humanities, Oregon and Then said Gregorio Cortez, humanitarian policy of the United the Pacific Rim. $73,925. With his pistol in his hand, "Ah, so many mounted Rangers States Army was colossal." Texas Committee for the Humanities, Texas Myths. Just to take one Mexican!" In the mid-1860s, Texans also be­ $46,250. gan cattle drives along the Chis­ Vermont Council on the Humanities and Public Cortez was eventually betrayed holm Trail to railroad centers in by a friend for the $1,000 reward Kansas and Missouri. The cattle Issues, Readings in the Constitutional Era. $67,587. and was brought to trial and sen­ barons' stock was supervised by Washington Commission for the Humanities, The In­ tenced to fifty years in prison. After perhaps the most famous of all quiring Mind: A Forum in the Humanities. $66,436. 22 But there is another error, an was, and is, almost unprecedented equally important one, in the arti­ in American intellectual life, that cle. Arendt considered Marx to be the thoughtful defense of political the foremost theorist of the phe­ freedom in the modern world re­ nomenon of modern revolution quired the thorough repudiation of and, therefore, its foremost obfus- Marx. cator. As the author notes, she ap­ —Joseph Phelan proved of only the American Revo­ Office of the Bicentennial of the U. S. lution among modern revolutions; Constitution, NEH and as the article also notes, this judgment is puzzling to contempo­ rary intellectuals. But the author Correction makes no attempt to enlighten the reader about the grounds for In a story about the Bauhaus (Hu­ Arendt's position. Arendt held the manities Volume IV, Number 5) we American to be the only successful inadvertently placed Black Moun­ damentally political animals and Arendt, Aristotle and Marx revolution because the Founders tain College in Georgia. The loca­ that politics is the sphere of life in aimed at, and were alone successful tion of the college was, of course, The recent article on Hannah which we reveal our humanness at, establishing a constitutional Black Mountain, North Carolina, Arendt in Humanities will leave most fully. But Marx's teaching government. "The basic misunder­ and it was originally housed in a readers who do not have a first­ about "man's place in society," as standing," as she put it, "lies in collection of buildings owned by hand knowledge of her writings any serious student of the history the failure to distinguish between the Blue Ridge Assembly of the with serious misconceptions about of political philosophy knows, has liberation and freedom; there is no­ Protestant Church. The building her work, especially her philosophi­ nothing in common with this in­ thing more futile than rebellion and complex was used by the church cal objections to Karl Marx and her sight. Arendt criticized Marx be­ liberation unless they are followed during the summer as a resort-con- interpretation of the meaning and cause he denied the political nature by the constitution of the newly ference area for its members and significance of the American of human beings, and because he won freedom." Arendt was an elo­ thus could offer the college an as­ Revolution. denied that political life was essen­ quent and profound defender of tonishingly low rent of $4,500 dur­ The author implies that despite tial for the development and enjoy­ the traditional view that the Consti­ ing the school year. Arendt's frequent attacks on Marx, ment of our distinctively human ca­ tution of the United States was the In the college's twenty-three year there was no substantial quarrel be­ pacities. She rightly considered "true culmination" of the American existence, professors there included tween them. He quotes with appar­ Marx to be an antipolitical thinker Revolution, rather than a conserva­ John Cage, Merce Cunningham, ent approval the contention of a whose influence on both philoso­ tive reaction to or betrayal of the Buckminster Fuller, Willem De student of Arendt's work that "the phy and politics has been an un­ principles of the Revolution. Kooning, Franz Kline, Robert two have more in common in their mitigated disaster. In her under­ Arendt's frequent attacks on Rauschenberg, Paul Goodman, and view of man's place in society than standing of the supreme impor­ Marx and her defense of the nobil­ Josef Albers. Mr. Albers, who Arendt was willing to admit." tance of politics for human happi­ ity of the goals of the American sought to make Black Mountain a It is indeed correct to identify ness, Arendt had more in common Revolution were linked together new Bauhaus, arrived with his wife the core of Arendt's work with the with Aristotle than with any mod­ and thus an essential part of her Ani in 1933, and remained at Black insight that human beings are fun­ ern philosopher. lifework. Arendt saw, in a way that Mountain for fifteen years. NEH Notes and News If you already subscribe to Humanities, Research Programs Overview A new brochure describing the kinds of support show this ad to your friends. available through the Division of Research Programs is available at no cost by writing or calling the NEH Public Affairs Office, Room 409, 1100 Pennsylvania They will appreciate the thoughtful and provocative articles by outstanding Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20506. 202/786- 0438. The brochure describes the three funding pro­ authors and humanities scholars * the news of NEH-supported projects * grams and includes general criteria for the evaluation the complete listing of recent NEH grants by discipline * news of pro­ of applications, a schedule of deadlines, and the staff telephone directory. grams, changes in guidelines, and the most recent calendar of deadlines Careers for Humanities Ph.D.'s for grant applications * in every issue of Humanities. How employable are humanities Ph.D.'s? To Six issues - $14. what extent are recent doctorate recipients looking beyond careers as college and university professors? Who is helping them and how? Two recent studies supported by the NEH Office of Program and Policy Studies (OPPS) provide some answers: —The National Research Council takes a close look at the recent cohort of humanities doctorate re­ cipients in Departing the Ivy Halls: Changing Employ­ ment Situations for Recent Ph.D. 's. This study found that almost one fourth of these individuals were working in nonacademic job settings. —Humanities Ph.D.'s and Nonacademic Careers, published by a consortium of Big Ten universities and the University of Chicago, discusses the state of the academic job market and provides practical advice to humanities graduate students and their faculty advisers about seeking nonacademic jobs. Copies of each of these publications are available from OPPS, Room 402, NEH, Washington, D.C. 20506. 23 Featured in this issue of Humanities . . . The Enduring Myths of Ancient Greece by Bernard Knox. Mythol­ ogy as a humanistic 9 subject is now con­ A Pictorial Guide to Gods and Kings in cerned at least as Olympus. America's Imperial India. An ar­ much with theory'fts, contribution to the in­ chaeologist/an­ with content. What are ternational Lexicon thropologist and an ar­ the new approaches Iconographicum chitectural historian ex­ that "remind us that Mythologiae Classicae plore a site in India Greek myth. . . can will encompass works charged with tap hidden wells of in all media created in mythological associa­ feeling in the soul?" the classical world in­ tions, where architec­ Transmitting the Oral cluding examples of ture, sculptural or­ Tradition. Was Ho­ classical kitsch. namentation and ur­ mer, chanting to an ban design worked unseen audience, the 5 together with myth to "first broadcaster?" reinforce the legitimacy With Ovid's Metamor­ of the king. phoses and Homer's 10 Celtic Mythology. State of the States: heroic technique, a Yeats, Joyce, Texas Myths. Texas new radio series hopes Tolkein—even Fleet­ has always been a to educate teenagers wood Mack—have larger-than-life land of about the central role been inspired by Celtic mythical heroes. Re­ of classical mythology mythology. Now the cent scholarship, in Western culture. Gaelic world of magic however, provides A Reconciliation of Myth and Reality by will become more ac­ evidence of some non- Robert M. Wallace. The translator of cessible via a dic­ traditional Texas Arbeit am Mythos discusses the implica­ tionary of Celtic myth, mythology—myths of tions of this second work by Hans legend, and folklore Native Americans, 6 Bluinenberg, a leader among the genera­ which boasts 7,000 Spanish/Mexicans, and tion of German philosophers who have entries. '■Afro-Americans—and come of age since the second World their formative role in War. Texas culture.

2 Editor's Notes 15 Grant Application Deadlines 16 Recent NEH Challenge Grants What Has Happened in Classics? 18 In the Next Issue by Helen North. A professor of classics examines the increasing in­ 23 NEH Notes and News tegration of classical studies into Letters to the Editor the world of contemporary culture; Humanities Subscription Information a new receptiveness to an­ thropology, structuralism, and semiotics; the comparative study of myth; the techniques of feminist criticism. The computer and quan­ tification are also transforming the way the ancient world is being studied and taught.