Aesop

"Since you sang like a fool in the summer,” said the ant, 

“you had better be prepared to dance the winter away!

1. Aesop’s fables are now generally considered children’s literature. Why is this the case? How is this classification inaccurate? Do these fables speak particularly to one age group?
   
   I imagine it's because they're short, simple, and feature animals: all things that can keep a child's attention while parting some folksy wisdom. I agree this depiction is inaccurate. These fables are not always transparent or easily digestible--sometimes I appreciated the summarizing closing line; other times I thought it was off--and the stories occasionally reflect adult themes that children cannot understand.
   
   But more importantly these fables are intended for children in the same way 'G' rated films are. Sometimes that's their target audience, but most of the time the author is simply casting a wide net. It's meant for all people, of all ages. But I would add that the ideal audience is the middle-to-lower class family, who would enjoy the fables without pretension or finding them crude. (Folk tales often beg for class analysis, but I'll resist that temptation here.)
   
   
2. To what degree are the animals anthropomorphized in these fables? Why? How does the attribute of speech change our perception of the animals? Does this affect the way that we enjoy the stories?
   
   The animals possess human language, attributes, and desires, while still firmly being part of the animal kingdom. This lets them serve as an analogue for human dilemmas; for example, the tortoise and the hair speak to each other, enter a race, and display virtues & vices--thoroughly human actives--while never going so far as to form a society. Thus their anthropomorphism only serves to illustrate a moral, while never breaking the audience's immersion.
   
   Speech in particular lets us connect to them because they're literally "talking our language". They're simultaneously identifiable and remote; familiar and fantastic. The audience is comforted and challenged at the same time, which adds to the stories' allure.
   
   
3. Compare the fables to the anecdotes of Odysseus on his journey home, and discuss in what manner they are similar or dissimilar from other short stories. For example, Odysseus’s encounter with Polyphemus might be understood to have a clear didactic moral for Odysseus, and yet it is clearly not a fable. Why not? What is the generic difference?
   
   Fables are episodic. Meaning they do not fit into a larger narrative (as Odysseus' stories do), contribute to a consistent theme (which would exclude Ovid's Metamorphoses), carry emotional or mental weight (they are bite-sized and often breezy), or communicate an ambiguous moral lesson (well, not intentionally). That is how they differ.
   
   They're similar in levying fantastical set-pieces to entertain their audience, while being just silly enough not to break their audiences' suspension of disbelief. They are, even at their most dangerous, non-threatening because they take place in a distant land, time, or reality (such as where animals talk). And both, of course, have something to say, which is ultimately conservative in character.
   
   
4. What sort of wisdom is contained in the fables? Is there a particular type of knowledge conveyed in them? How does this relate to the manner in which they might be considered instructive or illustrative?
   
   Despite the seriousness of the ending lines summarizing the moral--which I vaguely recall being added in the middles ages--Aesop's fables don't feel moralizing. Yes you can learn something from them, and yes each fable seems to be making a point, but they're enjoyable for their own sake and their pleasure may be more important than their didactic value. In fact their key motivation often lies in irony, producing a laugh and illustrating a character's folly. As such I don't feel right discussing their "wisdom", as it takes these stories a little too seriously.
   
   But if I had to narrow down their "particular knowledge", I would say these fables tease common vices, and aim to help the average person get by. Not in any practical sense, but simply in mocking the everyday stupidities we all engage in. This is why Aesop is given humble origins, instead of atop an ivory tower. His stories never--as far as I know--show us inspirational or idealized personages to imitate. He deals in fools, who serve as examples of how not to live. He appeals to the lowest common denominator, often ironically presenting a reassuring figure of fun: "at least I'm not as dumb as that guy."
   

Sappho

and cold sweat holds me and shaking
grips me all, greener than grass
I am and dead—or almost
I seem to me

1. How does Sappho’s presentation of love differ from Homer’s? Compare the loving discourse between Odysseus and Penelope to that which Sappho writes. Are these differences significant? If so, how?
   
   For Homer, love has a specific narrative function and serves the themes of the work they take place in. So in the Iliad, the interactions between Hector and Andromache epitomize the tension between husbands who need to give their life to protect their state, and their wives who rely on their husbands for their livelihood. Both feel conflicting emotions: duty against fear, the personal against the communal, and the union of marriage ironically severed by the need to protect it. Lastly, and most importantly, H & A are parents, and Astyanax's reaction to his father's armor reflects these tensions above, just as the babe's death is a proxy for Troy's destruction.
   
   Odysseus and Penelope likewise embody themes from the Odyssey. Their reuniting, taking place at the climax of the epic, putting marriage and its symbol (the deeply rooted marriage bed) as the apex of civilization, are book-ended with scenes where the couple first tests each other's faithfulness and then give each other counsel. They are halves to the same whole, and when combined bring order to the universe.
   
   While Sappho has themes too, these are reflections of love as they're really experienced, and appear less constructed and more natural than the scenes Homer paints us. Love doesn't serve some larger point but is an end onto itself, fueled by passion and controlling the "story" more than the other way around. She has poems where love is unrequited and brings a flood of emotions whose only purpose is to bring attention to themselves: desire, lust, sadness, regret, elation, with each of these reflected physically instead of just held internally. This isn't the careful script of Homer, but a description by Sappho as to what's actually lived-through. Or so it seems.
   
   
2. Choose three poetic tropes that Sappho makes use of and analyze their occurrences. What tropes are most common in her poetry? How does she employ them? What tropes are strikingly absent from her work?
   
   Setting aside the use of metaphors and symbols--which are ubiquitous in literature--the three tropes Sappho employs most often are hyperbole, invoking the gods, and rhetorical questions. None of these are particularly unique in ancient literature, and hyperbole is a pleasant mainstay in love poetry to this day. However I'm not that interested in how she wields them, and don't see much to write about. The only trope worth celebrating--now tame by today's standards--is her focus on homosexual love, about which I don't have anything new to say.
   
   Instead I'm fascinated by what tropes are missing. Almost entirely absent from Sappho's poems are other love cliches: star-crossed lovers, fabricated conflicts, and consummated desires. No where do we see two darlings pine for each other but unable to meet for whatever reason. Nor do we see them overcome that whatever reason and revel in each other's blaze. Instead we see a relationship after it's ended, a woman jealous of her friend (or her friend's partner), an old woman lamenting her age, an invocation to Aphrodite to engineer rape (!), and other atypical romantic states with the same beauty and intensity that's normally reserved for more conventional scenes. The closest we get to the typical are Sappho's marriage songs which, while lovely, feel a little too commercial.
   


3. What is Sappho’s essential understanding of love as revealed in these works? To what degree is it a passion, and to what degree is it an intellectual state? Is love good or bad? What other passions are most commonly associated with love?
   
   The heavy shadow draping over these poems is the tyranny of love.  Its ability to grant euphoria or anguish, against one's will, with no indication of length or outcome, tortures Sappho as a curse worth having. In fact there's an almost perverse reliance on Aphrodite that superbly reveals the god's power, so often tossed aside in other Greek myths. Perhaps then these poems are an attempt by Sappho to control that power, which so clearly controls her. Viewed in that light these are less poems than spells, meant to heal a broken heart or quench a clawing thirst.
   
   The associated passions that flow from this are also threatening: longing, hope, sadness, jealousy, and--most dangerous--bliss. Thus love cannot be identified as good or bad, but an endlessly mixed bag of emotions and desires roiling inside Sappho, with all the intensity and adventure of a Greek epic.
   
   
4. What is Sappho’s conception of the gods? Are they active or passive? Are they good or bad? How does this conception of the gods compare to Homer, Gilgamesh, and the ancient Egyptians? Is there a central, unifying understanding?
   
   Sappho articulates two conceptions. The first is perfunctory; in service of the marriage songs that she crafts for others. These are conventional and largely passive. The second is a more personal and active conception. She fittingly invokes female gods (Hera, Artemis, but by far Aphrodite) to protect and guide her and her loved ones.
   
   What's salient is her treatment of Aphrodite. Building on my prior answer, there is a dimension to the goddess of love that's reassuring. She unites people, she grants lustful desires, and when weighing the value of passion it's clear that a life without Aphrodite is not worth living. But by the same token, the unbridled influence that love can have over a person, not merely on their actions but on their psyche, casts this goddess as a tormentor at worst and a gatekeeper to happiness at best. She's even painted as capricious ("spangled mind"), which is no way to handle the most important part of a person's life.
   
   This is really what separates Sappho's religious views from her contemporaries. In other mythologies gods indeed control the world in capricious ways, but these always dealt with the exterior. Property, nations, flesh. It's only Aphrodite who can make or break someone's interior life, and for those who have been oppressively reduced to only their interior, this gives her life-or-death importance. In this way Sappho's appeal to this goddess is tragically sadomasochistic. She both loves and hates a symbol of her chains as well as her freedom. (From here it's impossible not to extend the analysis to her role in society at large, and what kind of pregnant symbolism homosexuality provides.) But to the extent she was leashed in love as well as life, Sappho seems to have at least found freedom in her art.
   

The Book of Job

One day the heavenly beings came to present themselves before the Lord,
and Satan was among them.

Why do we suffer? Why do the wicked profit, and the honest get left behind? Are our fates distributed at random, or is there method to the madness? And where is God when we need him most? These questions have weighed on our minds for thousands of years, but never has the issue been more honestly put than in the Bible itself. Located within the “Poetical and Wisdom” books of the Old Testament, the book of Job is a spectacular and singular debate on the concept of justice in an unjust world.

While written during the Hellenistic period of ancient Judaism, the story is actually one of the oldest in the Bible (pre-Abraham). Job, a man from Edom, is the most prosperous person in the East. He lives a perfect life and is a perfect person, honest and ethical in all things while being true to God. (Strictly speaking Job is not an Israelite and cannot have known or worshiped Yahweh, but we’ll speak in Judeo-Christian terms for simplicity.) One day the angels all get together to chill with God, and Satan is among them. God gloats over creation, particularly men like Job, who is faultless in all things. Satan scoffs at this and points out how it’s easy for Job to be pious when he has everything. To prove Satan wrong God allows him to deprive Job of all his possessions to test his faith. Satan destroys everything Job has and kills his immediate family, yet Job does not despair. Satan then asks to attack Job’s body, and God agrees. Thus Job is afflicted physically, and finally breaks down. He is visited by four friends who attempt to console him, but they instead enter a debate about God’s justice on Earth, and how Job feels he’s been betrayed by the Lord. While he never actually blasphemes—and from this Satan is ultimately proved wrong—Job seriously questions the theological paradigm and demands justification from God.

The debate here is the treasure of the text, and I am astonished at its profundity but also at its critical perception of God. Three of Job’s friends give the standard explanation of Job’s suffering: he must have sinned and God is punishing him. But Job is confident in his innocence and demands a trial to prove it. He is effectively summoning God to court, and legal language is used throughout his argument. His friends point out God’s majesty and power, and Job’s futility in trying to subject him to a human institution. But Job retorts that this is exactly the problem: God can never be held accountable for his actions, which means that we are subject to his whims whether they’re fair or not. And the belief that God only does good is seriously doubted, not only in Job’s case, but in the living reality that the wicked seem to prosper all the time, while innocent people are made to suffer. And if God does not enact justice on Earth, why be good? (It’s important to note there is no concept of heaven or hell in the Hebrew Bible.)

This is only a taste, as Job posits a number of fascinating ideas. He argues for the value of suicide when our quality of life reaches a low point (countering the belief that all suffering is “healthy”). He points out the impossibility of appealing to a higher power other than God, or even attempting to argue against God as he’s judge and jury, or also because God could convince you with a false argument if he wanted to, such is his power. Given Job’s situation, either his suffering came from God or it didn’t; if it didn’t, then life is chaos and God is of little use, but if it did, then God is capricious and there is unfortunately no escaping him. Job believes in the objectivity of his innocence, distinct from God’s acknowledgement, and is confident he could find a witness in heaven (other than God) to defend him. He argues for the rights of mortals against the divine. Job is the first, to my knowledge, to speak against the practice of making children pay for their parent’s crimes: a standard in ancient religions. He asks that if he has sinned out of ignorance or omission then God should clearly communicate that to him instead of make him guess. He suggests God set dates and times for visits to Earth to answer questions or administer justice, instead of acting needlessly enigmatic. He explains how appealing to God’s power as reply to his questions is a fallacy. And lastly, Job holds allegiance to his purity against God’s cruelty. It’s the only thing God cannot take from him.

As incredible as these points are, there are a few common themes pulsating underneath. The biggest is the conflict between doctrine and experience: Job’s suffering directly challenges scripture and he wants to know why. He's also fundamentally asking for a new theology based off divine justice, something that was not traditionally expected of religions (God in fact denies it) but was growing more common over time. And one way religions have been able to address Job’s arguments while claiming divine justice is through the invention of the afterlife in Christianity and Islam. But what Job is really doing is arguing for logical consistency in divine action, or at least, an explanation. This is also contested by God, but Job accepts the reply without agreeing to it. Finally, and my favorite, is Job’s allegiance not necessarily to God, but God’s expected morality. God is only worth loving if he is good; again a relatively new idea. But again God says this is mistaken.

Before we examine God’s reply let’s first hear the devil’s advocate, as it were. The three friends I mentioned above gave a rather lame and typical reply to Job, which failed utterly. But the fourth friend, ironically the youngest, does make some good counter-points. He stresses being good for goodness sake, regardless of being rewarded or not. If Job expects payment for his honesty then he’s simply greedy (and proving Satan correct), but if he’s not then he shouldn't complain about his current condition as it’s not contingent on his goodness. The friend points out the inherent order of the cosmos, countering Job’s points about a chaotic world, and asks why would God create the universe and lord over it only to be capricious? Also God doesn’t have to answer empty claims against him, and Job’s are not valid enough to warrant explanation. Lastly, people aren’t simply ‘good’ or ‘evil.’ They’re both, and are subjected to ups and downs, and Job should try and make the best of a bad situation.

But then, rather anticlimactically, God comes down and tells everyone to shut up ‘cause he’s gonna lay down the law. God’s argument, in essence, is that he’s all powerful and everyone else is ignorant. Job in response maintains his innocence, but yields the indictment against God. Bafflingly God then says Job was right all along, his friends were wrong, and gives Job a new family and twice as much money/land/animals/whatever. And he lives happily ever after.

This ending seems, in comparison to the richness of the debate, rather lame. God does not answer any questions and uses the same arguments the friends do, while simultaneously telling us that argument is wrong. He gives back Job twice as much (suggesting he has robbed him), which interestingly undermines Job’s argument (the correct one, remember) by administering divine justice. This, to me, is why the book of Job is not more popular. It explicitly challenges religious views and the ending is both confusing and unsatisfactory. A possible explanation is that the debate uses modern and sophisticated arguments, while the ending draws upon traditional religious beliefs: the universe is not just and gods are indeed capricious.

But this is precisely what makes the story so incredible. From a secular point of view, we realize that there is no satisfactory explanation for why suffering exists. There are no easy answers. Even if an all knowing, all powerful deity came down and told us the ultimate Truth, we would still not be happy, because the problem is more profound than any truth can fix. We may live in an arbitrary universe (reflected in the arbitrary bet God makes in the prologue) but that shouldn’t undermine our emotions experiencing it.

All this brings us back to Satan, and his seemingly strange inclusion in the heavenly pantheon. He is there to test humanity in God’s eyes. Job’s inclusion in the Bible is strikingly similar: it seems to be a work questioning its religion’s own internal logic. And best of all it provides no clear answers. God is ultimately unable to answer Job, and from that we must draw our own conclusions. For this and many other reasons I feel the work is a masterpiece; it’s the crown jewel of the Old Testament and arguably the best book of the Bible. Job doesn’t abandon its beliefs but subjects them to critical introspection, under the guise of intellectual debate. It’s the rare example in the Bible of a story holding its allegiance not to God, but to goodness itself. Not to the claims of religion, but to the rights of man.