Granì (Jun 2017)
The representation of the dichotomy of spirit and body in the culture of Ancient Greece
Abstract
The transformations of the concepts of spirit and body being the main dichotomy of the Western philosophers are in the focus of postmodern theorists – philosophers, literary antics sociologists, gender researchers, etc., thus they are usually representing the inter-disciplinary modus of postmodern scientific analyses. The introduction of the principle of corporeality by post-structuralists caused the rethinking of many classical concepts, which in its turn, led to the elimination of differences between «the Outer» «the Inner». On the other hand, as in hermeneutics any text is considered as being put in the continuously changing context of history and culture, the problem of narration is understood as the interrelation between «a history», «a narrative» and life in the broad meaning of this notion. The latter is considered as the conceptually significant in the analysis of the philosophy and the culture of any epoch, and in the particularly context, the culture of Ancient Greece is of paramount importance. Moreover, it gave birth to the disruption of soul and body of spirit and flesh and, thus, influenced greatly the subsequent development of the Western classical philosophy. Homer, having collected the ethical norms and prescription for the behavior of the Greeks in «Illiad» and «Odyssey», depicted his heroes as an embodiment of the physical perfection. At the same time, Homer’s fundamental mentality is still influential at the beginning of the third millennium: in «Illiad» the key woods are contest, dispute, war, argument, persuasion; in «Odyssey» – freedom, adventure, wealth, knowledge. On the whole, the man of Homer is characterized as «a symphony of many voices». Homer’s man does not possess «the body», he possesses different organs and parts. However, the discovery of the body by Homer had great consequences: sexuality and sensuality are among the most valuable gifts of ancient Greece to the modern world. The complicated interrelations of «the Outer» and «the Inner» in the world of the Ancient Greece are represented in the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocle and Euripides. They created not only literary images that made bad enormous impact on the Western culture, they were «philosophers on the stage» teaching morality in both public and private spheres of life. In Aeschylus’s tragedies the most important problems of the opposition of the individual and the society are represented on the stage; Sophocle, who made the tragedy «go down from Heaven to the Earth» paid great attention to the man in his inner world transformations; Euripides, who described people as they were in their real lives, also connected his intentions with presentation of the inner world of human beings, both man and women. Especially interesting is the role of women in Euripides’ tragedies: the most remarkable examples of self-sacrifice are given by Euripides’ heroines. The Greek woman in Euripides’ tragedies is a morally mature human being, she is self-conscious, and her attitude to the world is critical. Special attention should be paid to the consideration of the Appolonian and Dionysian forces which are declared to be «the primary conflict» of the Western culture. Being a philosophical and literary dichotomy in Sophocles’ and Euripides’ tragedies, they represent the transformations, which led to their confluence. The corporal sensuality of the Ancient Greece literature, promoting the transformations of sensuality into art, nowadays is still one of the key narratives of Western culture, both in its high and low versions.
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