Literature expert and SCS instructor, Jonathan Ullyot, explains why we should stop trying to derive meaning from Greek theatre, and instead let it be.
Greek theatre teaches us nothing. And that’s a good thing.
To ask what matters about literature – especially Greek literature – is to miss the point. It is to treat a piece of literature as a tool. Only when we let it be exactly what it is, nothing more and nothing less, can we fully experience Greek theatre.
Aristotle suggests that to live without an end (a telos, a goal, a motive, an agenda), is the only way to learn ethics or the value of friendship.
In other words, when we focus too much on the meaning, message, or modern relevance of Greek theatre, we impose our own ideas and experiences onto it. If we must always ask “how does this relate to me? What can I learn?” then we find ourselves reading the same stories everywhere. Everything is either “inspirational” or just “depressing.” When we consume Greek theatre from a “me” perspective, imparting our own ideas, perspectives, and understandings onto it, it prevents us from having a genuine experience. Insight occurs only when we encounter something unanticipated, even unwelcome.
So, how can we really experience Greek theatre, free from our human desire to “make sense and meaning?”
Let the art be art. Stop trying to learn from it.
Literature and theatre only work when we refrain from trying to gain something – anything – from it. Be patient when you encounter it. Stop trying to insert yourself – your experiences, joys, pains, thoughts, opinions – onto it.
Learning is pleasurable. Changing the way we believe is transformational.
Jonathan is an instructor at SCS, a Professor at Seneca College, and an Associate Professor at Beijing Jiaotong University. He earned his doctorate in 2010 in Comparative Literature at the University of Chicago, where he taught over twenty courses in ancient and modern literature. His book, The Medieval Presence in Modernism: The Quest to Fail, was published in 2016 by Cambridge University Press. His most recent book, Ezra Pound's Classical Sources, will be published by Bloomsbury Academic Press in late 2022. He's currently at work on a new book about James Joyce and Early Cinema.
This Spring/Summer semester, Jonathan will be teaching two online courses: Friedrich Nietzsche: the First Modern Man and Kafka and the Kafkaesque.