Classical studies 1 авг. 2015 в 00:14
1. Gilbert Murray. A History of Ancient Greek Literature (1901)
2. Gilbert Murray. Hellenism and the Modern World (1953)
3. Gilbert Murray. Tradition and Progress (1922)
4. Gilbert Murray. Euripides and His Age (1918)
Gilbert Murray (2 January 1866 – 20 May 1957) is considered one of the most important scholars of Greek history and culture. As a scholar and educator, he was noted for incorporating anthropology, then an emerging science, into his studies of Greek texts. As a result of this novel approach, he increased the academic world's understanding of the writings of Homer as well as the ancient Greek religions. A recurrent theme in his scholarly works involved the continuing importance of ancient theology and religions to modern thought. He illustrated this by recounting the many theological trends of ancient Greece.
This approach guided his writing in such scholarly works as The Rise of the Greek Epic, which was published in 1907, and Five Stages of Greek Religion, published in 1925. In the latter work, Murray described the earliest and most primitive rites as well as the classic Greek religion that included the Olympian gods and the later religion of the philosophic schools of the fourth century B.C. By outlining Greek theology in this fashion, he postulated that Christianity resulted from a cultural clash between Greek and Eastern religions. His other well-known works include History of Ancient Greek Literature (1897), The Classical Tradition in Poetry (1927), and Hellenism and the Modern World (1953). His Euripides and His Age (1918) is considered on of the best books written about its subject. Essentially, he ripped the name down from the pantheon of great Greek authors, brought the subject down to earth, and made Euripides a compelling flesh-and-blood figure, placing the writer squarely in the context of his times while emphasizing his continued relevance. "As a playwright the fate of Euripides has been strange," wrote Murray in Euripides. "All through a long life he was almost invariably beaten in the State competitions. He was steadily admired by some few philosophers, like Socrates; he enjoyed immense fame throughout Greece; but the official judges of poetry were against him, and his own people of Athens admired him reluctantly and with a grudge. After death, indeed, he seemed to come into his kingdom. He held the stage as no other tragedian has ever held it, and we hear of his plays being performed with popular success six hundred years after they were written, and in countries far removed from Greece."
Commenting about Greek scholarship and the value of the ancient texts, Murray once said, "Between us and [ancient Greek authors], there has passed age upon age of men … who sought in the books that they read other things than truth and imaginative beauty, or who did not care to read books at all. Of the literature produced by the Greeks in the fifth century B.C., we possess about a twentieth part; of that produced in the seventh, sixth, fourth and third, not nearly so large a proportion. All that has reached us has passed a severe test and far from discriminating ordeal. It has secured its life by never going out of fashion for long at a time."
