Are we done with the Greeks?

[milo]

I was reading some poetry reviews recently and I ran into the following snippet:

Can we please have just one more poem about Greek myths?
There are some modern poets who continue to draw “inspiration” from the Greek Myths, as though the 19th, 18th, 17th, 16th and 15th centuries never happened. They do, honestly, think they have something new and original to add, but Greek Mythology is truly the Hydra of modern poetry. All the pathos and vigor has long since been drained out of them. Allusions, let alone whole poems devoted to the myths,  are as appealing, to me, as stale lettuce. - uncredited

What are your feeling on this?  When you read another poem about Greek Mythology, do you roll your eyes and move on?  Do you incorporate Greek mythos into your own writing?

Thanks

[rowens]

The one who wrote that about the Greek is using the Greek to write about it. They use Greek and Latin words to make the very points they make. Words and Symbols and Myths are tied up in how people feel, think and do. Poems and stories about Africa and China and Scandinavia, often now, operate by comparison and recontextualizing through Greek and Biblical notions and affect. The Christian Bible and some Nations which claim Christian or Muslim or Hebrew relevance are sourced in, for and against, the Greek aspects of the Bible, and so with much of popular culture. Japanese culture and Mexican culture and so on are "corrupted" with Western-Christian notions, and so Greek.

For poetry to work, there has to be some resonance, and the easiest thing to resonate with, and often fulfilling and tempting, is what resonates already.
When I was growing up, fairy tales and myths were referenced in cartoons and children's shows and pop culture all the time. That's not always the case now. But values and ethics and language still are based in those origins.

That can be broken out of, while flirting with Difference. I don't know the origin of the word 'Difference'.

I have planned to one day write a book with no allusions other than folklore and urban legends of local places, which is already, somewhat, touched by myth and religion.
And I have planned to write a book of poems with no allusions at all, which is, maybe ironically, called, The Kindly Ones.

[milo]

The one who wrote that about the Greek is using the Greek to write about it. They use Greek and Latin words to make the very points they make. Words and Symbols and Myths are tied up in how people feel, think and do. Poems and stories about Africa and China and Scandinavia, often now, operate by comparison and recontextualizing through Greek and Biblical notions and affect. The Christian Bible and some Nations which claim Christian or Muslim or Hebrew relevance are sourced in, for and against, the Greek aspects of the Bible, and so with much of popular culture. Japanese culture and Mexican culture and so on are "corrupted" with Western-Christian notions, and so Greek.

For poetry to work, there has to be some resonance, and the easiest thing to resonate with, and often fulfilling and tempting, is what resonates already.
When I was growing up, fairy tales and myths were referenced in cartoons and children's shows and pop culture all the time. That's not always the case now. But values and ethics and language still are based in those origins.

That can be broken out of, while flirting with Difference. I don't know the origin of the word 'Difference'.

I have planned to one day write a book with no allusions other than folklore and urban legends of local places, which is already, somewhat, touched by myth and religion.
And I have planned to write a book of poems with no allusions at all, which is, maybe ironically, called, The Kindly Ones.

As you probably know, it was tradition back in the day for poets to write a few Aesop's fables.  It is said that Socrates, while awaiting his death sentence from his trial, spent his time translating what Aesop's fables he could recall.

And who are we?  Better than Socrates?

I made it my mission to write a book titled 100 Aesop's Sonnets, which was to be a book of 100 Sonnet fables.

I think I made it up to 18 before I got distracted and moved on.  Anyway . . .

[busker]

Greek myths are quite terrible and not fit subject matter for modern poetry. The characters lack depth and and nuance, or have the bare minimum of these. Greek myths work only because of the several centuries of allusion. For instance, Milton drew heavily upon Homer in using his similes, and any allusion to either Homer or Milton could reflect two separate literary traditions.

Likewise, Greek drama is quite terrible by modern standards. Look at Antigone. It couldn’t be performed today without considerable reinterpretation.

Greek literature has no depth.And no, it’s not because it was all a long time ago.

It’s because intelligent Greeks didn’t write poetry and drama. The hacks did, for the lowest of the low masses who flocked the theatre. The highbrow ones wrote philosophy and history, or maths and science.

In the western tradition, only the Bible is worth reading as a source of myth and literature, from the ancient world. There is depth and pathos. Unfortunately, for long the west made the Bible unusable as a source of myth because America believed the world was created in 6 days.

Coming back to the Greek myths - they are terrible. Use others.

PS - I’m certainly better than Socrates. Archimedes, no. Socrates didn’t know partial differential equations. No one before Newton was fully human, with only a handful of exceptions.

---

Edited a few lines. Terrible typing on the phone.

[milo]

Greek myths are quite terrible and not fit subject matter for modern poetry. The characters lack depth and and nuance, or have the bare minimum of these. Greek myths work only because of the several centuries of allusion. For instance, Milton drew heavily upon Homer in using his similes, and any allusion to either Homer or Milton could reflect two separate literary traditions.

Likewise, Greek drama is quite terrible by modern standards. Look at Antigone. It couldn’t be performed today without considerable reinterpretation.

Greek literature has no depth.And no, it’s not because it was all a long time ago.

It’s because intelligent Greeks didn’t write poetry and drama. The hacks did, for the lowest of the low masses who flocked the theatre. The highbrow ones wrote philosophy and history, or maths and science.

In the western tradition, only the Bible is worth reading as a source of myth and literature, from the ancient world. There is depth and pathos. Unfortunately, for long west made the Bible unusable as a source of myth because America believed the world was created in 6 days.

Coming back to the Greek myths - they are terrible. Use others.

PS - I’m certainly better than Socrates. Archimedes, no. Socrates didn’t know partial differential equations. No one before Newton was fully human, with only a handful of exceptions.

---

Edited a few lines. Terrible typing on the phone.

The whole rant is pretty good but I mostly loved the part about being superior to Socrates because he didn't know DifEq

[rowens]

I have notebooks of urban legends. The one I remember most right now is about a midget that lives in a park restroom trashcan. That is of that Adult Swim apparent randomness made into a literary form based on a cultural-genre, that can get away from direct use of myth and fairy tale and fable.

I'm also dipping into the Oz books more and more for allusions. As well as my local area's version of the Jack-Tales. Woot the Wanderer is my Oz figure that I work with the most.
Some people who make poems have a mythic mascot that shows up again and again. Maybe an alter ego that can take on the skin of a time and place. A Greek Figure, or even a Philosopher. Jay Wright does that with Philosophers. I have a Figure called South Boston Williamson who sings blues and tells toasts, but is white, so keeps getting kicked out of the Universities he reads at for insensitivity. He's a composite of Bukowski, Berryman, Dickey, Andy Kaufman and Rudy Ray Moore. Like any trickster, he's self-aware and clueless depending on the tale.

---

Nietzsche and Artaud and Lawrence would argue, did, that people are self-absorbed and want depth and psychological drama and character studies. Whereas Greek Drama is free of making sense and suffering brains. They knew about suffering brains, and they wanted to explode into bodily primacy while still being sharp and critically accepted by other suffering brains.

The Bible and Greek Myths, or what stories they were based on, or the so-called Collective Unconscious, which came first?
Novelty being set. An ark of the way things are, in cultural-mythic patterns. That Ark of the Stories. The Zodiacal-Zoo of a Slaveship in the sea of the sky and beyond the sky, reflection or cavewall? Dividual Dome. 
This is where Cosmic Horror comes in handy. Cutting the myths and the sciences to something other. Even the idea of otherness is typical.
I don't like many Cosmic Horror movies, as they bring it back to something that makes sense in the sense we already have.
Not that I dislike traditions, particularly.  If I rip the fabric of reality and find something that makes sense, I didn't rip anything.

[milo]

Greek myths are quite terrible and not fit subject matter for modern poetry. The characters lack depth and and nuance, or have the bare minimum of these. Greek myths work only because of the several centuries of allusion. For instance, Milton drew heavily upon Homer in using his similes, and any allusion to either Homer or Milton could reflect two separate literary traditions.

Likewise, Greek drama is quite terrible by modern standards. Look at Antigone. It couldn’t be performed today without considerable reinterpretation.

Greek literature has no depth.And no, it’s not because it was all a long time ago.

It’s because intelligent Greeks didn’t write poetry and drama. The hacks did, for the lowest of the low masses who flocked the theatre. The highbrow ones wrote philosophy and history, or maths and science.

In the western tradition, only the Bible is worth reading as a source of myth and literature, from the ancient world. There is depth and pathos. Unfortunately, for long the west made the Bible unusable as a source of myth because America believed the world was created in 6 days.

Coming back to the Greek myths - they are terrible. Use others.

PS - I’m certainly better than Socrates. Archimedes, no. Socrates didn’t know partial differential equations. No one before Newton was fully human, with only a handful of exceptions.

---

Edited a few lines. Terrible typing on the phone.

Have you written any poetry using the Greek mythos?

[busker]

Have you written any poetry using the Greek mythos?

Allusions here and there. In quite a few places, actually
Such as: https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-24217.html
The “cry of Achilles” is the cry he gave on seeing Patroclus, and also his war cry, so grief and causing grief, all layering up nicely.
There is also the crying Achilles, right at the start of the epic, when he goes and complains to his mother the sea.

[milo]

Have you written any poetry using the Greek mythos?

Allusions here and there. In quite a few places, actually
Such as: https://www.pigpenpoetry.com/thread-24217.html
The “cry of Achilles” is the cry he gave on seeing Patroclus, and also his war cry, so grief and causing grief, all layering up nicely.
There is also the crying Achilles, right at the start of the epic, when he goes and complains to his mother the sea.

I was interested because . . .

Like the author of the original, I have noticed poets love bringing up references to Greek Mythos.  I have certainly been guilty of it dozens of times.  Part of it carries on our allusion discussion - it is a well known mythos (continuously building really) making the job of allusion easy and a simple line can bring a lot into the current poem (or any writing)

Leanne used to love the Greeks.  Myths, Sappho for sure - her writing was littered with it.

Your reply was one of the first I have seen in my life making a strong case against it.  I loved it! It was refreshing, well founded and well-worded.  I don't necessarily agree with it but it is definitely making me see the use in a different way and question my own reliance on it.

Maybe poets are just lazy, it is often an easy string to pull.

Anyway, thanks for the interesting discussion, I may post something with a reference to Greeks later today.