Memories of Odysseus : frontier tales from ancient Greece

Author(s)

Bibliographic Information

Memories of Odysseus : frontier tales from ancient Greece

François Hartog ; translated by Janet Lloyd

Edinburgh University Press , University of Chicago Press, 2001

  • : hbk : uk
  • : pbk : uk
  • : hbk : us
  • : pbk : us

Other Title

Mémoire d'Ulysse

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Note

French ed. first published 1996 by Gallimard

Includes bibliographical references and index

Description and Table of Contents

Volume

: hbk : us ISBN 9780226318523

Description

The conception of the Other has long been a problem for philosophers. Emmanuel Levinas, best known for his attention to the issue argued that the voyages of Odysseus represent the very nature of Western philosophy : "His adventure in the world is nothing but a return to his native land, a complacency with the Same, a misrecognition of the Other." In this text Francois Hartog examines the truth of Levinas' assertion and, in the process, uncovers a different picture. Drawing on a range of authors and texts, Hartog looks at accounts of actual travellers, as well as the way travel is used as a trope throughout ancient Greek literature, and finds that, instead of misrecognition, the Other is viewed with doubt and awe in the Homeric tradition. In fact, he argues, "The Odyssey" played a crucial role in shaping this attitude in the Greek mind, serving as inspiration for voyages in which new encounters caused the Greeks to revise their concepts of self and other.
Volume

: pbk : us ISBN 9780226318530

Description

The conception of the Other has long been a problem for philosophers. Emmanuel Levinas, best known for his attention to the issue argued that the voyages of Odysseus represent the very nature of Western philosophy : "His adventure in the world is nothing but a return to his native land, a complacency with the Same, a misrecognition of the Other." In this text Francois Hartog examines the truth of Levinas' assertion and, in the process, uncovers a different picture. Drawing on a range of authors and texts, Hartog looks at accounts of actual travellers, as well as the way travel is used as a trope throughout ancient Greek literature, and finds that, instead of misrecognition, the Other is viewed with doubt and awe in the Homeric tradition. In fact, he argues, "The Odyssey" played a crucial role in shaping this attitude in the Greek mind, serving as inspiration for voyages in which new encounters caused the Greeks to revise their concepts of self and other.
Volume

: pbk : uk ISBN 9780748614479

Description

This is a book about identity, about how the ancient Greeks saw themselves and others, and what this tells us in turn about Greek mentality and culture. It looks at voyagers and explorers, at travels in reality and in the mind, and shows what these reveal at key points in Greek history from the creation of Homer's monumental epic around 700 BC to the high Roman imperial period some eight hundred years later. The author takes us first to the journeyings of Odysseus, considering the returning warrior's concerns of witness and memory and finding in the epic the themes that will preoccupy the Greeks over the centuries. He then travels to Egypt with Herodotus, to the problematically 'barbarian' world of Persia and the Near East with Alexander the Great, to old Greece with the fictional Scythian Anacharsis, to the new Greek world under Roman domination with Polybius, Dionysius of Halicarnassos and Strabo, and finally to the Asia Minor of the first-century AD sage Apollonius of Tyana in the company of Philostratos. He examines both what their representations of these lands meant in their own day and how they were received in later times. He looks in particular at the importance of the invention of the barbarian and the "other", first in the theoretical process of desribing and accounting for the outside world, and secondly at the justification it gives for the practical reshaping of alien space through conquest and assimilation -- themes which have had, as he points out, a more recent resonance. Francois Hartog draws widely on ancient and modern authors to create a cultural history of ancient Greece that sheds a new and revealing light on the Greeks and the history of humankind more generally.
Volume

: hbk : uk ISBN 9780748614486

Description

This work centres on identity, questioning how the ancient Greeks saw themselves and others, and what this tells us about Greek mentality and culture. It looks at voyagers and explorers, at travels in reality and in the mond, to show what these reveal at key points in Greek history. It first follows the journeying of Odysseus, considering the returning warrior's concerns of witness and memory, and finding in the epic the themes that will preoccupy the Greeks over the centuries. The analysis then moves to Egypt, Persia, the Near East, old Greece, the new Greek world, and Asia Minor, from the creation of Homer's work around 700BC to the high Roman imperial period some 800 years later. The author looks in particular at the importance of the barbarian and the "other", first in the theoretical process of describing and accounting for the outside world, and secondly at the justification it gives for the practical reshaping of alien space through conquest and assimilation - themes with a later resonance.

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