Classics and 'Specialness'

via Wikimedia Commons

I read with pleasure Mary Beard's post yesterday on her upcoming lecture "Does Classics Have a Future?" She is considering incorporating The Browning Version into the talk, focusing on the scene where the beleaguered classics teacher, Andrew Crocker-Harris, is given Robert Browning's translation of Aeschylus' Agamemnon as a gift.

This caught my attention for a couple of reasons. One is that my SO showed me the 1994 Albert Finney film just after we had started dating, so it seems to be important to his idea of what the classics are. (I showed him Branagh's Henry V, a movie I can't watch at the moment because of its gratingly idealistic tone. [Look at us! We conquered France because our king is more closely related to the previous king that yours! Hooray!])

Beard's post, and the Browning Version scene, also mesh well with some thoughts I've been pondering about Classics and specialness. As a Gen Xer, I lived through the whole parental/pedagogical experiment with raising self-esteem as an end in itself. So part of why I value Classics is that it shows me both that I'm not special and that it doesn't matter that I'm not. For thousands of years, people have had their hopes dashed, let themselves down and made stupid decisions. (Like killing your brother's kids and serving them at a feast. Or sacrificing your daughter for the sake of a military expedition.)

Am I wild about living in a rather isolated town with less-than-pleasant winters? Of course not. But I understand that economic forces cannot always be overcome by "believing in yourself." And most importantly, studying classics has helped me develop an imaginative and creative life that should be able to transcend temporarily unpleasant circumstances. Pin It