In and Out of the Mind
Greek Images of the Tragic Self
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.
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.
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