Welcome to The Ancient Greek Hero. Our
project is about heroes— not the way we
may understand them when we first hear
the word, but the way the ancient Greeks
understood them in the context of
ancient Greek civilization. I'm arguing
that if you understand what the ancient
Greek hero is, you simultaneously will
understand far better what ancient Greek
civilization is. And don't worry you
don't have to know anything about this
civilization for starters. I'm perfectly
happy if you haven't read anything about
the history of ancient Greek
civilization, and you certainly don't
need to know the Greek language because
everything you will be reading will be
in serviceable English translations— very
good ones I think, and ones where we
very carefully track the meanings of
words while we translate them for you.
Okay: 
"ancient Greek hero". One thing that
fascinates me about them is how 
all-present they are in every form of
ancient Greek literature. So when you
think of the pieces of literature that
we're going to read— and let me list them:
the Homeric Iliad and Odyssey, seven
tragedies, parts of Herodotus, 
sometimes known as the father of history,
two dialogues of Plato— if you read these
pieces of literature, Greek literature— 
and they are the masterpieces of the
civilization— you will find that heroes
are all-present, both male and female
heroes, heroes of every age. And in fact
if you understand their relationship
with the gods and their relationship
with the people of the present— people in
the so-called post heroic world— you will
understand that there is a great deal of
tension between what they stand for and
what the gods stand for on one side and
what we ordinary humans stand for on the
other side. To understand this tension,
focusing on the hero, is for you to
understand not just Greek civilization
writ large, but also— and I think this is
a tremendous benefit— the value of
studying literature for its own sake, or,
as I like to call, it verbal art for its
own sake. To study literature is to
understand the humanities, and, more
importantly, what it is to be human— that
is to say, what it is to aspire to
humanism. And I think in the age that
happens to be our age— the present—
there's a real hunger for understanding
what it is to be a decent human: somebody
who has a place in the environment, in
society, in the cosmos. And all of this
comes together, just as I said at the
beginning, in the very idea of an ancient
Greek hero and how it plays out in these
wonderful pieces of literature that
we're going to be reading. It's not going
to be easy, this literature, but there's
not that much of it to read— and the
important thing is for you not to give
up when you get started but just to keep
on reading,
keep consulting with us if there's
anything that's less clear than it could
be.
And I guarantee you, if you get through
especially the Iliad and the Odyssey and
the seven tragedies and the two
dialogues of Plato, you will really feel
the way Herodotus
says you should feel: that you've had a
civilizing experience. If that's the kind
of experience the ancient Greeks had— and
that's what we learn from Herodotus—
they really thought that if they knew
the Iliad and the Odyssey, and maybe a
few other things, that they would be
civilized, educated people, then it
certainly applies to us as well. And in
many ways we need the kind of civilizing
influence even more than the ancients. So
once again, welcome to The Ancient Greek
Hero! I'm very interested— and in fact
enthusiastic— about following through
with you, and I wish you a very fruitful
set of readings in a truly beautiful
form of literature— verbal art.
