Ancient Greek Literature by Tim Whitmarsh

A first class introduction to the literature of Ancient Greece. I was fortunate to have a working knowledge of about half the ancient texts referred to in the book before tackling it, and I believe that it was made more understandable because of that. However, no writer can be totally neutral politically, and Whitmarsh does seem to have a political agenda although we are cautioned against imposing out modern sophistications onto ancient ways of thinking. The sting comes in the final chapter and it is a challenge: ‘Literature, as a category of culturally privileged, specialist discourse, often preserves itself for society’s dominant groups.’ He might almost be saying that knowledge of literature is the great divide in society and led me to speculate whether ignorance [of the literary canon or archive] is bliss or something to be encouraged in the masses so that they are never able to threaten the privileged position of the elite.