Overview

"This book studies the social and ethical formation of youthful figures in Homer, Sophocles, and Euripides. Every fictional character comes with a past attached, a presumed personal history that is both implicit and explicit; for the youthful heroes and heroines of epic and tragedy, early education figures significantly in that past. Cheiron's Way takes as its point of departure the words of Homer's Phoenix to Achilles, who claims, ""I made you the man you are"" as he pleads with his former pupil to let go of his anger. The book begins by exploring topics relevant to heroic and tragic education: age classes, rites of passage, verbal modes of instruction, social conditioning, mentoring, peer role models, and the controversial balance between nature and nurture. It introduces the first teacher in the Greek tradition, Cheiron the centaur, who founded a school for young heroes in his Thessalian cave and instructed Achilles, Jason, and others with mixed success. Next it turns to the Iliadic Achilles, who achieves maturity by way of successive crises-a crisis of disillusionment with the assumptions that shaped his heroic education, followed by a crisis of empathy for his adversary-and who becomes an influential prototype for tragedy. Examination of the Odyssey suggests that while Odysseus received a normative heroic upbringing and Nausicaa internalizes social expectations for young women, Telemachus is more of an outlier. In tragic representations of education Sophocles' Ajax and Neoptolemus replicate the Achillean pattern only partially and unsuccessfully, as does Euripides' Hippolytus; only Achilles and Iphigenia in Euripides' Iphigenia in Aulis achieve an emotional maturity commensurate with the Iliadic Achilles'. Yet all these texts confirm, as elegantly argued in this book, the perennial lure, despite uncertain results, of the educational enterprise for communities, students, and teachers."

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9780190857882

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Reviews

Among the many great strengths of Justina Gregory's Cheiron's Way are the erudition and clarity with which she explores the importance of education in archaic and classical Greek literature and illustrates both the enormous potential and the tragic limitations of education itself. This is a strikingly ambitious and brilliantly realized book. -- William Allan, University of Oxford Intelligent and well informed, Justina Gregory's fine book manages to say something both new and useful about its much studied subject matter -- nature and nurture in the development of young men and women, imitation and instruction, family relationships, empathy -- as well as offering revealing rereadings of the epics and tragedies it examines. -- Mark Golden, University of Winnipeg Gregory's humane analysis focuses upon the pervasive depiction in Greek epic and tragedy of characters who are in the process of learning. Familiar mythological heroes and figures are carefully examined in ways that both illuminate their individual characters and raise fundamental issues about the meaning of works as a whole, and even about broader social values that education entails. -- Charles McNelis, Georgetown University

Gregory's humane analysis focuses upon the pervasive depiction in Greek epic and tragedy of characters who are in the process of learning. Familiar mythological heroes and figures are carefully examined in ways that both illuminate their individual characters and raise fundamental issues about the meaning of works as a whole, and even about broader social values that education entails. -- Charles McNelis , Georgetown University Intelligent and well informed, Justina Gregory's fine book manages to say something both new and useful about its much studied subject matter -- nature and nurture in the development of young men and women, imitation and instruction, family relationships, empathy -- as well as offering revealing rereadings of the epics and tragedies it examines. -- Mark Golden , University of Winnipeg Among the many great strengths of Justina Gregory's Cheiron's Way are the erudition and clarity with which she explores the importance of education in archaic and classical Greek literature and illustrates both the enormous potential and the tragic limitations of education itself. This is a strikingly ambitious and brilliantly realized book. -- William Allan , University of Oxford Gregory presents sensitive and insightful readings of the Homeric epics and tragedies of Sophocles and Euripides. Achilles' movement from adolescent self-centeredness to mature empathy is evergreen; Gregory's frame of socialization into the heroic code deepens our understanding of how the theme pervades the epica. The work provides engaging readings of the literature and contributes to our sense of how the language of education helps communicate the heroes' crises. -- Bryn Mawr Classical Review ...the work provides engaging readings of the literature and contributes to our sense of how the language of education helps communicate the heroes' crises. -- Paul Ojennus, Whitworth University, Bryn Mawr Classical Review Among the many great strengths of Justina Gregory's Cheiron's Way are the erudition and clarity with which she explores the importance of education in archaic and classical Greek literature and illustrates both the enormous potential and the tragic limitations of education itself. This is a strikingly ambitious and brilliantly realized book. -- William Allan, University of Oxford Intelligent and well informed, Justina Gregory's fine book manages to say something both new and useful about its much studied subject matter -- nature and nurture in the development of young men and women, imitation and instruction, family relationships, empathy -- as well as offering revealing rereadings of the epics and tragedies it examines. -- Mark Golden, University of Winnipeg Gregory's humane analysis focuses upon the pervasive depiction in Greek epic and tragedy of characters who are in the process of learning. Familiar mythological heroes and figures are carefully examined in ways that both illuminate their individual characters and raise fundamental issues about the meaning of works as a whole, and even about broader social values that education entails. -- Charles McNelis, Georgetown University

Among the many great strengths of Justina Gregory's Cheiron's Way are the erudition and clarity with which she explores the importance of education in archaic and classical Greek literature and illustrates both the enormous potential and the tragic limitations of education itself. This is a strikingly ambitious and brilliantly realized book. -- William Allan, University of Oxford Intelligent and well informed, Justina Gregory's fine book manages to say something both new and useful about its much studied subject matter -- nature and nurture in the development of young men and women, imitation and instruction, family relationships, empathy -- as well as offering revealing rereadings of the epics and tragedies it examines. -- Mark Golden, University of Winnipeg Gregory's humane analysis focuses upon the pervasive depiction in Greek epic and tragedy of characters who are in the process of learning. Familiar mythological heroes and figures are carefully examined in ways that both illuminate their individual characters and raise fundamental issues about the meaning of works as a whole, and even about broader social values that education entails. -- Charles McNelis, Georgetown University

Author Information

Sophia Smith Professor Emerita of Classical Languages and Literatures at Smith College, Justina Gregory is the author of Euripides and the Instruction of the Athenians (University of Michigan Press) and Euripides' Hecuba: Introduction, Text, and Commentary (Scholars Press). She has also edited A Companion to Greek Tragedy (Blackwell) and published numerous articles on Euripides and Greek tragedy.

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