I mentioned in my previous posting that I was engaged in
preparing my first set of classical mythological resources for the Our Mythical Childhood… project for use
with autistic children. I also said that this blog will report on my ongoing
progress towards this first set of resources, which will be ready in February
2018. This posting, along with others that will follow shortly, will
be doing just this – by providing preliminary comments on the rationale behind
the mythological material I shall be using for these resources. As I have said
previously, these concern the figure of Hercules and I have begun to explain why
I have made this particular choice. Here I shall say more about why this hero
will form the subject of the resources. I shall also say more about the
particular Hercules-related artefact that I shall be centring the resources
around. I shall also make clear – here and in subsequent postings – what the
link is between these resources and the picture of a sculpture collection in Merseyside that heads this posting.
I have mentioned previously that a major inspiration for the
resources I am creating has been a volume by Nicola Grove and Keith Park. This
volume, Odyssey Now, presents a set
of resources around the adventures of a particular ancient hero. In the
introduction, Grove and Park detail what led them to a focus of this hero and
his adventures. And here I shall think about their resources, and how it might
bear on the Herakles-Hercules, the
hero that I have chosen for my particular focus. I do this so that those who
use the resources will be able to see the potential that I see in the choice I
have made for work with autistic children.
Grove and Park say that, when they let others know that they
were planning activities around the adventures of Odysseus, some surprise was
expressed. This was because Odysseus is the paradigm of the classical Greek
hero, and thus he is from a culture that is deeply imbued with elitism. And I
can see the validity of such a response. The world of classical heroes might
appear to be inaccessible for those using the resources – for several reasons.
Firstly, Classics has often been the preserve of the elite – and the very name
‘Classics’ is full of elitist associations. Classical myths have remained
popular since the end of the classical world, but the receivers have tended to
be leaders steeped in ‘high’ culture. For example, country houses and landscape
gardens are packed full of classically-themed imagery – in statues through houses
and grounds for instance and in the paintings that adorn the walls of the
showpiece rooms and staircases, or at least once adorned them.[1]
A ‘classical education,’ including an education that provided young people, men especially, with knowledge and appreciation of myth was the preserve of those educated to be future leaders. This can be seen, for example, in the games that were played by young men in Georgian and Victorian times. These included writing nonsense verse which involved drawing from a deep familiarity with various classical events, myths and personages. For these young men, myth was flexible – and it could be used flexibly. Each user could create their own new version, with wit and humour. But it was an activity preserved for those who had the schooling that would enable such an engagement. (For more on this see this posting, which includes a discussion of this topic by Rachel Bryant Davies.)
The classical world forms part of our world – but generally
with the more elite side of that world. As I have just surveyed, when it is used
by children the children are those who will grow up to be leaders – the
diplomats and politicians of the future. Such receptions in children’s culture
are echoed in other modes of reception. I have already mentioned landscape gardens
and country houses. Many of our cities
are also full of classical-rich imagery. But these tend to be to convey
messages about leadership and imperialism. They are often found, for example,
adding adorning such institutions as banks, libraries, museums and parliaments
– institutions that can appear inaccessible to non-elites.
As I said above, Grove and Park’s choice of Odysseus
elicited some raised eyebrows. The hero I have chosen might elicit still higher
raised eyebrows, for one thing, the hero I have selected is popular in one of
the elite contexts I have mentioned above – the landscape garden. And the materials I am presenting here are in a room in a gentleman’s
villa, which, like other houses of the time was designed to look like a Roman
temple as though the grandeur of the classical past has been transplanted onto
the English countryside. Moreover, the artefact would have been part of the
decorations of a room designed to accompany any actual antiquities designed to
accompany actual antiquities brought back from the Grand Tour.
Yet, as Grove and Park mention, they were able to deal with
the concerns of their colleagues in various ways, including by stressing just
how strong a place can be occupied by their subject. They were able to draw
attention to the vivid retelling in the 1980s (they were writing in 1995) by Tony Robinson. This updating of Odysseus has been continued since then as well – and
this shows that it is possible to rescue Odysseus from centuries of elitism.
For instance, just this year, there was a one-man performance of the Odyssey [details to follow!] where the audience members were the
Phaeacians, listening to the hero’s tales about his adventures. So accessible
were these adventures to children that they asked such question as ‘what
happened to your shoes?’
Odysseus, then, can be rescued from any elitist
associations. Can Hercules? In a sense, it is harder to rescue this particular
hero. In another sense, it is significantly easier, so much so that even a
representation in a room in a gentleman’s villa can be made accessible to a
wide audience – a more diverse audience that those for whom it was created.
I shall discuss why this is the case in my next posting...
[1] I
don’t usually opt for footnotes in blog postings, but I didn’t want the main
text to get too crowded. But here is an instance of where topics relevant to
other blogs I write bear on the current one. Thanks to one of my PhD students,
who has a family tie with the house in question, I’m currently developing an
interest in Ince Blundell Hall in Sefton in Merseyside, now a nursing home. Its
collection of antiquities was given to the National Museums Liverpool, while
most of its paintings have been sold. I have a longer-running interest in the
antiquities collected by the second Earl of Bessborough, and that were once on
display in his 18th-century neoclassical villa, Parkstead House in
Roehampton. Since they were sold by the third Earl, these have resided in several
collections, including at the British Museum, Sir John Soane's Museum and – I
have just discovered – the Ince Blundell collection. Just a few weeks ago, I
took part in an event that formed part of the 2017 Being Human Festival. In
line with this year’s ‘Lost and Found’ theme, we included photos of the
artefacts now in the BM and the Soane. I shall now start to put together photos
from the collection in Liverpool. I haven’t exactly gone off topic with this
footnote: the key artefact I shall be using in my first set of resources was
also in an 18th-century neoclassical villa in Roehampton.
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