The method which comes to me as containing the least amount of madness for this complicated message is a preliminary perusal of Edith Hamilton, honorary citizen of Athens (1957). Students find the stories she tells entertaining in light of their resemblance to superhero comics, and (always curious to me) to science fiction. It is necessary to begin the study of drama with the study of myth because drama has its origins in the Greek worship of Dionysus.
1
Antigone
will be more accessible and more acceptable to students if they have read the story of Oedipus. If I want them to learn that literature contains man’s unconscious and religious instincts, his response to the unknown, I have to begin with the ideas of Greek myth. I have to demonstrate its influence on Christianity, and Christianity’s influence on most of the world. It is important that they understand how much of literature is a continuation of, or a reaction to, these early ideas.
I intend to proceed with discussions, vocabulary and quizzes. The most important exercises are the two final compositions. The first of these is the writing of a modern myth.
In order to do this, students have to understand the fear and danger of the times which gave rise to such stories. They must attempt to imagine living with information which created such behavior as sacrifice and taboo. The unconscious still moves us in these directions. People are still troubled by obsessive and compulsive acts, by superstitions. The easiest way for students to make a connection between myth and mind is to discuss modern superstitions. (You will hear many unusual beliefs and many family ghost stories.) Why do superstitions exist? What is the point of not opening an umbrella in the house? Why not “cut a tree” when you’re walking? They must attempt to place themselves in the position of living without science. Ask them to picture the sunrise, the death of vegetation and its rebirth, the death of men (and the possibility of their rebirth). Knowing nothing of science, how are they to explain it all? Myths were the fundamental explanations of questions like:.
Why does the sun set?
Why is there rain, lightning, thunder?
Why do plants die and come back to life?
Where did that tree, plant, animal, or flower come from?
What is madness, disease?
Why don’t we eat that?
Students would write a fictitious modern explanation of their own to some such question.
The final essay of the introductory unit will involve the questioning of one of the following religious parallels. I plan to point these out as the class reads the material. I am hoping that the Institute will provide a set of King James Bibles, as it will be necessary to read both versions of a story at once. I’m sure students will wonder, as I do, about the real meaning of ideas which are so often repeated. Some manifestations of these ideas are:
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1. The festivals of Ceres and Dionysus and the rites of Christmas and Easter.
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2. The theme of cannibalism in the stories of Tantalus, Procne, and Atreus, and the rite of communion.
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3. The theme of sacrificing children in the stories of Iphigenia, Hector, Menoeceus, Odin and Ymir, and in the Biblical tales of Isaac and Abraham and of Christ.
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4. The theme of destruction by flood in the stories of Baucus and Philemon, Deucalion and Pyrrha, and of Noah, and in the scientific theory that man returned to the sea for several thousand years.
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5. The Greek and Norse explanations of creation, the account in Genesis, and scientific theories.
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6. The personality of Zeus and the suffering of Prometheus compared with the personality of God and the suffering of Job.
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7. The fall of Hephaestus from Olympus and the fall of Lucifer from heaven.
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8. Danae and Perseus and the Annunciation.
What has all of this accomplished? It has asked questions about the nature of religion and superstition. It has formed a bridge between mythology and Christianity to which drama owes so much. It can pose the question of the necessity of religion: Is it necessary, and if so, why so? I think so.
More important, it has familiarized students with the story
Antigone
is based on. It can help their reading of
Everyman
by providing a basic Christian background. Historically speaking, it can help students realize that the church struggled to build a congregation by adopting pagan rituals, by outlawing drama, and then by reintroducing pageantry in the Mass and in the mystery and miracle plays. Once the Church built an audience, it had to keep it by continuing to appeal to it. This history suggests a continuing human need for drama.
Mythology and the King James Bible can make the language and allusions of Shakespeare easier to deal with. It can help students understand Ibsen’s Biblical references. Hamilton’s continuous caustic and terse commentary is a useful tool. Her opinions familiarize students with the major Greek and Roman writers and give them a sense of their styles and personalities. This background, in addition to pictures of the authors, the theaters, the costumes, Greek life, Greek travel posters, and any other cheap and and easy tricks to spark interest have created a natural bridge to the study of Sophocles. We are ready to go on.