The Ralston College Podcast Polytheism and the Polis: The Drama of the Individual Before the Self with Paul Epstein | Ralston College
Dr Paul Epstein is a distinguished classicist and Professor Emeritus of Classics at Oklahoma State University, renowned for his extensive knowledge of Greek and Latin literature.
In this lecture and discussion—delivered in Savannah during the x term of the inaugural year of Ralston College’s MA in the Humanities program—classicist Dr Paul Epstein considers how Sophocles’s tragedy Women of Trachis and Aristophanes’s comedy Frogs arise from—and reflect upon—the polis-centered polytheism of ancient Greece as it appeared during the Athenian flourishing of the fifth century BC. Professor Epstein explores how these Greek dramas articulate the relationship between human beings, the gods, and the community. Tragedy, in Professor Epstein’s account, is about the overall structure of the community, while comedy starts with the individual’s exploration of that community. Yet both forms ultimately reveal an understanding of the individual that is inseparable from the polis in which he or she lives. Professor Epstein argues that our contemporary notion of the self as an entity fundamentally separate from context would be entirely alien to the ancient Greeks. Grasping this ancient understanding of the individual is vitally necessary if we are to correctly interpret the literary and philosophical texts of Hellenic antiquity. *In this lecture and discussion, classicist Dr. Paul Epstein considers how Sophocles’s tragedy Women of Trachis and Aristophanes’s comedy Frogs arise from—and reflect upon—the polis-centered polytheism of ancient Greece during the Athenian flourishing of the fifth century BC. Professor Epstein explores how these Greek dramas articulate the relationship between human beings, the gods, and the community. Tragedy, in Professor Epstein’s account, is about the overall structure of the community, while comedy starts with the individual’s exploration of that community. Yet both forms ultimately reveal an understanding of the individual that is inseparable from the polis in which he or she lives. Professor Epstein argues that our contemporary notion of the self as an entity fundamentally separate from context would be entirely alien to the ancient Greeks. Grasping this ancient understanding of the individual is vitally necessary if we are to correctly interpret the literary and philosophical texts of Hellenic antiquity.
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0:00 Introduction of Professor Epstein by President Blackwood
6:25 The Polytheistic World of the Polis
01:09:35 Dialogue with Students on Polytheism and the Polis
01:22:40 Sophocles’s Women of Trachis
01:44:10 Dialogue with Students About Women of Trachis
01:56:10 Introduction to Aristophanes' Frogs
02:24:40 Dialogue with Students About Frogs
02:49:45 Closing Remarks for Professor Epstein's Lecture
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Authors, Ideas, and Works Mentioned in This Episode:
Athenian flourishing of the fifth century BC
Sophocles, Women of Trachis
Aristophanes, Frogs
William Shakespeare
Plato, Symposium
Aristophanes, Lysistrata
Homer, Odyssey
Aristotle, Poetics
Peloponnesian War
Plato, Apology
nomizó (νομίζω)—translated in the talk as “acknowledge”
nous (νοῦς)
binein (Βινέω)
Johann Joachim Winkelman
Nicene Creed
Titanic v. Olympian gods
Hesiod
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
Sigmund Freud
Existentialism
techne (τέχνη)
logos (λόγος)
eros (Ἔρως)
hubris (ὕβρις)
Philip Larkin, “Annus Mirabilis”
Athansian Creed
psuche (ψυχή)—translated in the talk as “soul”
thelo (θέλω)—translated in the talk as “wishes”
Aristophanes, Clouds
mimesis (μίμησις)
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Additional Resources
Ralston College (including newsletter)
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