In this wide-ranging work Ruth Padel explores Greek conceptions of human innerness and the way in which Greek tragedy shaped European notions of mind and self. Arguing that Greek poetic language connects images of consciousness, even male consciousness, with the darkness attributed to Hades and to women, Padel analyzes tragedy's biological and daemonological metaphors for what is within. These images are part of our own culture too, but as Greek tragedy uses them they reveal attitudes to emotion that are remarkably alien to modern readers. Padel provides important background to fascinating details of Greek life such as entrail-divination and snakes in the house, showing how these relate to the Greek understanding of mind. Central to her discussion is tragedy's perennial question, how and why all human beings, female and male, suffer.
By:
Ruth Padel
Imprint: Princeton University Press
Country of Publication: United States
Edition: New edition
Dimensions:
Height: 254mm,
Width: 197mm,
Spine: 13mm
Weight: 340g
ISBN: 9780691037660
ISBN 10: 0691037663
Pages: 230
Publication Date: 16 January 1995
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
College/higher education
,
Undergraduate
,
Primary
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
"PrefaceAcknowledgmentsAbbreviationsCh. 1Introduction: The Divinity of Inside and Outside3Ch. 2Innards12Entrails: Learning, Feeling, Dividing12Heart, Liver, Phrenes, Inner Liquids18""Spirit,"" ""Soul,"" ""Mind""27Metaphor and ""Anatomical Details""33Concreteness of the Innards: Poroi and Pre-Socratics40Insight into Disunity44Ch. 3Disease and Divination: Knowing the Causes of Pain49External and Internal Forces of Disease49Channels to the Soul: The Vulnerability of Sight and Hearing59Inner Movement: Source of Knowledge, Sign of Pain65Black Prophetic Innards68Discourse of Darkness75Ch. 4The Flux of Feeling78Death, Sleep, Dream, and Underground Rivers78Flow and Storm81Breaths of Passion88Ch. 5Inner World, Underworld, and Gendered Images of ""Mind""99""Mind,"" Earth, Womb, Hades99Inner Impurities and Emissions: ""Good"" Turned ""Bad""102The Mainly Female ""Mind""106Ch. 6The Zoology and Daemonology of Emotion114Daemonic Weather, Wind, Fire114Goads, Whips, Pursuit117Biting, Eating119Oistros, Poison, Snakes, Dogs120The Mobile Adversary One Cannot Fight125The Aerial Terrorist129These Inner Wounds Are Real132The Alternative: Growth Within134Ch. 7Animal, Daimon: Bringers of Death and Definition138Nonhuman: What We Defend Ourselves Against138Animal Weaponry141Using Animal Is Using Daimon144Nonhuman Definition of the Human147Gods' Weapons152Personifications157States of Mind: Multiple, Daemonic, Female159Ch. 8Blood in the Mind162Ate, Lyssa: Madness Personified162Epic Erinyes164Tragic Erinyes: Damage ""from the Ground""168Blood, Murder, Madness172Erinyes Seen179The Most Polluted Day182Erinyes Unseen185Where the Terrible Is Good189Works Cited193Index205"
Ruth Padel, recently Visiting Professor in the Modern Greek Program at Princeton University, has taught classics at the University of Oxford and the University of London. She is the author of two books of poems and of Whom Gods Destroy: Elements of Greek and Tragic Madness.
Reviews for In and Out of the Mind: Greek Images of the Tragic Self
One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 1992 A rich and brilliant study... [Padel] helps us to see not just that Greek ways of thinking are so profoundly alien, but also how they make sense and could be coherently lived. Her skill as a writer ... make[s] those foreign patterns of thought compellingly vivid. --Malcolm Heath, The Times Literary Supplement Unfamiliar connections and perspectives will make [this] book important for professionals, and the vivid portrayal of an intense and exotic mental world will appeal to the serious general reader. --Jasper Griffin, The New York Review of Books An intriguing book... Padel ranges widely over the medical writers, epic, comedy, and philosophy. She fortifies and enriches her arguments with the work of scholars in anthropology, psychology, and religion... A poet herself, she is very sensitive to the possibilities and associations of language. --Michael R. Halleran, Bryn Mawr Classical Review Ruth Padel's close reading of the language of the extant plays will be helpful to scholars and provide a window onto ancient Greek ideas of the mind for the general reader. --The Washington Times
- Runner-up for Choice Magazine Outstanding Reference/Academic Book Award 1992
- Runner-up for Choice Magazine Outstanding Reference/Academic Book Award 1992.
- Short-listed for Choice's Outstanding Academic Books 1992 (United States)
