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“No one carries his learning more gracefully than Knox. That is because he does not, like so many scholars, seal it off from the rest of life. Ancient and current wisdom communicate through him.” ―Garry Wills
Should the ancient Greeks―"the oldest dead white European males"―be kept alive in our collective memory? Why study them at all if, by passing their destructive ideas to the Romans and eventually to the rest of Europe, they may ultimately be responsible for much of what’s wrong with American society? In this “supremely lucid and elegant” book (The New Yorker), Bernard Knox poses and answers such fundamental questions, helping us to remember the astonishing originality of the ancient Greeks and all that we have learned―and continue to learn―from them."synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews:
Long-time scholar and classicist Knox (coeditor, The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces) offers three essays in defense of the ancient Greeks against their current and many maligners in the camps of the new academia. ``[The] revisionist case lacks cogency,'' declares Knox, arguing simply that the role of the ancients ``in the history of the West has always been innovative, sometimes indeed subversive, even revolutionary.'' As for the great fight over the ``canon,'' Knox refuses to be ruffled or alarmed, merely pointing out--perhaps optimistically--that if the classics are exchanged for other books, ``the new material will have to compete with the old, and if it is not up to the same high level it will sooner or later be rejected with disdain by the students themselves.'' Whether Knox sufficiently buttresses his arguments here to win the day in some imaginary and strenuously heated debate may not matter very much; his voice offers the high pleasures of enormous learnedness, great common sense, and simple clarity as he speaks (the essays all had their origins as talks) about the original meaning of the liberal arts, about the psychology and intellectual attitudes of the ancients--not avoiding their blemished views regarding women and slavery--and about the genuine contributions of the sophists, their best and deserved reputations besmirched for all of history by that zealous early promoter of political correctness, Plato. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
From Publishers Weekly:
In three erudite essays originally delivered as lectures, Knox stresses the relevance of the ancient Greeks (the "dead white males" of the title) to the modern world. Former director of Harvard's Center for Hellenic Studies, Knox ( The Norton Book of Classical Literature ) defends the modern teaching of the humanities as "an education for democracy." While acknowledging the inferior status of women in ancient Greek society, he argues that women were a formidable presence in the household, and he finds in Greek epics, poetry and drama a wealth of assertive, active females. Knox portrays the Sophists, who taught rhetoric and poetry, as "the first professors of the humanities." It was the Sophists, not Socrates, who "brought theory down from the skies," he insists. He closes with an account of his year-long stay in Greece, where he found living ties between the country's ancient and contemporary language and culture.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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- PublisherW. W. Norton & Company
- Publication date1994
- ISBN 10 039331233X
- ISBN 13 9780393312331
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages148
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Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. Should the ancient Greeks-"the oldest dead white European males"-be kept alive in our collective memory? Why study them at all if, by passing their destructive ideas to the Romans and eventually to the rest of Europe, they may ultimately be responsible for much of what's wrong with American society? In this "supremely lucid and elegant" book (The New Yorker), Bernard Knox poses and answers such fundamental questions, helping us to remember the astonishing originality of the ancient Greeks and all that we have learned-and continue to learn-from them. No one carries his learning more gracefully than Knox. That is because he does not, like so many scholars, seal it off from the rest of life. Ancient and current wisdom communicate through him. Garry Wills This item is printed on demand. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780393312331
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