In The Great Conversation, Robert M. Hutchins insists that the Great Books are not above the level of comprehension of the average American. Perhaps this was true in 1952 when Mr. Hutchins wrote his introduction to Great Books of the Western World but it is implausible today, and I suspect that it was not accurate seven decades ago.
A certain level of historical context is necessary when it comes to comprehending many of the Great Books even at a basic level. I attended a well-regarded public school system in the Silicon Valley in the 1980s and I graduated from a respected private university. Although my education did not entirely ignore the ancient world, it was woefully inadequate especially in retrospect after several decades. I clearly need more historical context than the very limited biographical sketches included in Great Books of the Western World and in the reading plans provided by the Great Ideas Program.
Edith Hamilton was one of the most important classicists of the twentieth century. After a long career in education, Hamilton retired in 1922 at the age of fifty-five and began a second career as an author. Her first book, The Greek Way, was published in 1930 and has been regarded as a classic for many decades. I learned about the book by listening to an episode of the Books of Titan podcast which reviewed its contents.
Hamilton places Ancient Greek civilization on a pedestal. The period between the victory over the Persians at Salamis in 480 BC and the fall of Athens to Sparta in 404 BC at the end of the Peloponnesian War marked the high water mark in Greek history for Hamilton, and she believed that the truths the Greeks discovered in this golden age have relevance for us today. Noting that human nature seems to remain constant over time even as society undergoes massive changes, we are urged to not ignore the wisdom, albeit of an incomplete and fragmentary nature, that has come down to us.
I found it interesting that Hamilton places Greek thought and culture far above Rome, asserting that Athens and Rome had little in common:
“Greek thought, science, mathematics, philosophy, the eager investigation into the nature of the world and the ways of the world which was the distinguishing mark of Greece, came to an end for many a century when the leadership passed from Greece to Rome. … Athens and Rome had little in common. That which distinguishes the modern world from the ancient, and that which divides the West from the East, is the supremacy of mind in the affairs of men, and this came to birth in Greece and lived in Greece alone of all the ancient world. The Greeks were the first intellectualists. In a world where the irrational had played the chief role, they came forward as the protagonists of the mind.”
One cannot read the phrase “protagonists of the mind” in the context of Ancient Greece without immediately thinking of Plato’s depiction of Socrates in his famous dialogues. The quest for truth, the search for knowledge, and the joy of discovery jumps off the pages when one reads Plato, which is something that I recognized immediately when I read The Apology and Crito and wrote about it recently. My recent reading of the first two books of The Republic only strengthens my initial impression.
As we would expect, Hamilton devotes a chapter to describing how Athenians saw the world, at least through the eyes of Plato:
“The society he introduces us to is eminently civilized, of men delighting to use their minds, loving beauty and elegance, as Pericles says in the funeral oration, keenly alive to all the amenities of life, and, above all, ever ready for a talk on no matter how abstract and abstruse a subject.”
Indeed, the “leisured” society of which Socrates was a part is readily apparent in the dialogues, as men with seemingly unlimited time engage each other in extended conversation seeking to better understand the truth through logical reasoning, in a step-by-step fashion. The conversations may occur in a man’s house or in a natural setting, such as on a hot summer day under a tree providing shade.
In the opening book of The Republic, we see Socrates in dialogue with an old man of leisure, his son, a combative older man, and finally with two of Plato’s brothers. Hamilton discusses The Republic briefly which I found valuable given that I was in the process of reading the first two books at the same time. Plato can be well understood by most modern readers without much external aid, but it is very useful to have a sense of the state of Athens at the time, at the height of its power, prestige, and fidelity to democratic values — a idyllic state that would soon disintegrate.
While Hamilton covers Plato as well as the histories of Herodotus and Thucydides, I got the sense that her true passion was analysis of the Greek mind through the work of the famous poets. A chapter is devoted to the comedy of Aristophanes while several chapters detail the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. I have yet to read any of these plays, although my reading plan includes Sophocles in the near future. I suspect that I will need all the help I can get as I read the plays of Ancient Greece.
As Hamilton delves into the comedies and tragedies of Ancient Greece, I found that she assumes a greater level of background than I currently possess. In particular, she made numerous comparisons between the Greek tragedians and the works of Shakespeare. To the extent that I read any Shakespeare at all in my formal education, it was many decades ago and has totally escaped my memory. Perhaps I am too intimidated by the idea of reading plays, but this genre has often seemed difficult. Hamilton’s discussion, while providing some insight, was a bit over my head, at least for now. I plan to revisit these chapters once I begin to read Sophocles.
After reading The Greek Way, I am considering whether I should deviate from the reading plan I settled on a few weeks ago. I am still planning to go through the suggested readings in the first volume of The Great Ideas Program. The fifteen readings provide a sweeping survey from Ancient Greece to Plutarch to St. Augustine to Shakespeare all the way up to selections from the nineteenth century. However, after this survey is complete, I am inclined to return to Ancient Greece and read the full works of Herodotus and Thucydides followed by more selections from Plato.
I am also likely to revisit The Iliad and The Odyssey given the central role of Homer’s work in so much that came later. Although I have read Homer more than once in the past, including just a few years ago, I am afraid that if I do not read him again now I will miss many references to these epics, especially in the plays of Ancient Greece.
I would recommend The Greek Way to anyone interested in Ancient Greece, especially those who are in the process of reading these texts for themselves. Although this brief book does not provide a comprehensive history, it does provide enough background to put many topics in context.
Copyright, Disclosures, and Privacy Information
Nothing in this article constitutes investment advice and all content is subject to the copyright and disclaimer policy of The Rational Walk LLC. The Rational Walk is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.