Anthropology and the Classics

Anthropology and the Classics - Six Lectures Delivered Before the University of Oxford

Anthropology and the Humanitieson verbal grounds one might suppose them coextensive; yet in practice they divide the domain of human culture between them. The types of human culture are, in fact, reducible to two, a simpler and a more complex, or, as we are wont to say (valuing our own achievements, I doubt not, rightly), a lower and a higher. By established convention Anthropology occupies itself solely with culture of the simpler or lower kind. The Humanities, on the other handthose humanizing studies that, for us at all events, have their parent source in the literatures of Greece and Romeconcentrate on whatever is most constitutive and characteristic of the higher life of society. What, then, of phenomena of transition? Are they to be suffered to form a no-mans-land, a buffer-tract left purposely undeveloped, lest, forsooth, the associates of barbarism should fall foul of the friends of civilization? Plainly, in the cause of science, a pacific penetration must be tolerated, nay, encouraged, from both sides at once. Anthropology must cast forwards, the Humanities cast back. And there is not the slightest reason (unless prejudice be accounted reason) why conflict should arise between the interests thus led to intermingle. [Pg 4] Indeed, how can there be conflict, when, as in the case of each contributor to the present volume, the two interests in question, Anthropology on this side and Classical Archaeology and Scholarship on that, are the joint concern of one and the same man? Dr. Evans both is a leading authority on prehistoric Europe, and likewise, by restoring the Minoan age to the light of day, has set Greek history in a new and juster perspective. Dr. Lang is an anthropologist of renown, and no one, even amongst his peers, has enriched the science with so many original and fertile hypotheses; nevertheless he has found time (and for how much else has he found time as well!) not only to translate Homer, but also to vindicate his very existence. Professor Murray can turn his rare faculty of sympathetic insight now to the reinterpretation of the music of Euripides, and now to the analysis of the elemental forces that combine and crystallize in the Greek epic. Principal Jevons is famous for his brilliant suggestions in regard to the early history of religion; but he has also laboured in the cause of European archaeology, and his edition of Plutarchs Romane Questions is very precious to the student of classical antiquities. Professor Myres, whilst he teaches Greek language and literature as the modern man would have them taught, and is a learned archaeologist to boot, yet can have no greater title to our respect than that, of many devoted helpers, he did the most to organize an effective school of Anthropology in the University of Oxford. Finally, Mr. Warde Fowler, living embodiment as he is in the eyes of all his friends of the Humaner Letters, both is the historian of the Graeco-Roman city-state, and can wield the comparative method so as to extort human meaning from ancient Romes stately, but somewhat soulless, rites. Unless, then, [Pg 5] dual personality of some dissociated and morbid type is to be attributed to these distinguished men, they can scarcely fail, being anthropologists and humanists at once, to carry on nicely concerted operations from both sides of their subject, just as the clever engineer can set to work on his tunnel from both sides of the mountain. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 53646
Author: Evans, Arthur
Release Date: Dec 1, 2016
Format: eBook
Language: English

Contributors

Contributor (Author): Fowler, W. Warde (William Warde), 1847-1921, Jevons, F. B. (Frank Byron), 1858-1936, Lang, Andrew, 1844-1912, Murray, Gilbert, 1866-1957, Myres, John Linton, Sir, 1869-1954
Editor: Marett, R. R. (Robert Ranulph), 1866-1943