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> The context of the Iliad, ancient Greece, is completely alien to the modern US, just as it is to modern China I was taught Greek mythology in grade school, r
by duped 3y ago
> The context of the Iliad, ancient Greece, is completely alien to the modern US, just as it is to modern China
I was taught Greek mythology in grade school, read the Odyssey and Iliad in middle school English, Antigone and Oedipus Rex in high school, and the story of Orpheus and Eurydice was a recurring theme in some college courses but that's a bit specific. Our philosophy courses in highschool and college started with Plato.
And within larger culture, there was the animated film Hercules, the Percy Jackson novels, and a broadway musical based on Orpheus and Eurydice that swept the Tony awards in the last twenty years.
American culture is obsessed with ancient Greece and its stories.
- Auracle 3y ago> American culture is obsessed with ancient Greece and its stories. Because it’s so damned cool. I’ll never understand how Abrahamic religions won the “war” over Greek/Roman gods. Plus a pantheon makes sense - trying to explain away babies born with cancer is pretty hard in Abrahamic religions. Not so much when you have various gods that don’t really care about you and just do their own thing.
- rini17 3y agoIt seems to me like an historical accident caused by pervasive brutality of living in Roman empire. Pantheon might have made sense to explain it, but people were primed to expect a savior nevertheless. The story of Jesus was a perfect fit and the Jewish monotheism got imported with it.
- anthk 3y agoMore like Aquinas and the early Christians adapted the Middle Eastern tales to the Roman/Greek culture based people, because if you told us the Europeans couldn't neither eat pork or drink wine, the people would revolt in a breeze.