Hercules being horrible? Hercules and Lernaean Hydra,
California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco.
Details here
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Here I am going
to turn to why, specifically, Hercules is the hope-provider on which I am focusing.
I shall start with a discussion of why I have opted for this subject: because
not everyone likes Hercules. For example, I was in correspondence with the
mother of an autistic girl recently after she wrote to ask whether there were
any books on classical myth that might appeal to her daughter. When I mentioned
some Hercules-related books, she let me know that her daughter does not like
Hercules, because of the way he behaves in classical myths. I get what she means.
One response
might be that every mythical figure is potentially awful, including those whom
many people regard as empowering. Which ancient deity is not selfish and
vindictive, for example? So, let me stress that I am not picking Hercules as an
instance of one who is invariably, or even mostly, ‘good’. When I have been in the
audience at academic papers where Athena is mentioned by the speaker, and where
Athena is going to do something unpleasant, the speaker has sometimes begun by
saying something like ‘sorry, Susan’. The reason I’ve been singled out like
this is because I have done quite a bit of work on the topic of Athena, and the
speaker feels a need to apologise for portraying this deity in an unfavourable
light.
But I don’t
think that you need to like what you write about... Athena is a lens through which
to see much of antiquity and its reception – including patriarchalism, violence
and morality based around helping friends and harming enemies. This potential
of Athena as a lens is what I like about this deity. I’d say the same about
Hercules.
Now I’ve dealt
with this issue of how to deal with mythological figures who are, in some way,
unpleasant, I shall turn, in the next posting, to how I am using Hercules. I’m
expecting to go on a bit of a monster journey in this posting thanks in part to
some recent things I’ve been writing about Athena as a monster-sided deity.
Also, just this morning I’ve been listening to an interview with Liz Gloyn on the Endless Knot podcast about her new
book on classical monsters…
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