How Generative AI is Like Classical Reception

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In a conversation with a work colleague, we discussed analogies to how generative AI impacts how we teach students to learn and how we assess student learning outcomes. What does it mean for scholarship?

Comparisons were offered with the introduction of the calculator, or Wikipedia, or talking to a well-read friend, or an actor, or the role Leonardo DiCaprio played in Catch Me if You Can. I pondered the new problem that after two and half thousand years of literary theory, we still can't measure what it is to write as a human. We have no basis for collecting data on the distinction between human writing and writing by a bot that mimics human writing. The first attempt was based on perplexity and burstiness. These are not normally regarded as literary terms. We can collect data to determine how to write in the style of Ernest Hemingway or Agatha Christie, measuring the occurrence of adverbs, exclamation marks, and distinctive words, as well as sentence length, for example. These are distant readings; the opposite of close readings (see Ben Blatt’s 2017 Nabokov’s Favourite Colour is Mauve on statistics on the craft of writing). 

My colleague said that a producer creates an artifact which is the boundary between the producer and the responder. The responder assumes a human made the product. The text. This is a boundary - the artifact stands between the writer and the reader - but the reader understands that the text was created by a human. Now the human creator is unknown. With generative AI, that boundary is blurred. We think of this as something new, but I suspect we have been here before. I suggested that the blurred boundary already exists in the field of Classics. Generative AI is like the reception of texts from ancient literature; the passed down received meaning of texts that are lost, found, fragmented, translated with bias, and compiled with bias.

I said that my analogy would be the corpus of extant ancient literature and explained why: fragments lost and found, references from other texts, fluid oral stories transcribed into an artifact, translations retranslated, the whole provenance over millennia, all the accidents of history; yet the claim is that these texts survived due to their value and their meanings as they have been passed down through generations of scholarship. We have no autograph copies of any ancient texts. We don’t know if Homer was an actual person; we only know that hymns, epic poems, and a comedy were assigned to him, if he existed. As for the known writers in ancient history, there is no assurance that a person we identify wrote these exactly as the texts have come to us. They do have value, but as tools to think with (as does everything) and we need to check our assumptions. 

This is what Chat GPT says about the reception of ancient classical texts: Classical texts have been revered and preserved over centuries due to their cultural and historical significance. They often reflect the values, beliefs, and ideas of the time in which they were written. They have been studied, analyzed, and interpreted by scholars, and their influence has been acknowledged and passed down through generations. 

But that’s not exactly true. 

The texts that have survived from ancient times did not necessarily survive because they were the best. If that were true then the Roman graffiti that survives does so because it is excellent and important, rather than because it was written on stone walls rather than papyrus. Most texts that have survived are due to accidents of history. Socio-religious or geo-political factors may play their roles in specific times and places but generally the survival of most, perhaps all, texts are purely by chance. We know about some texts that did not survive because they are recorded in texts that did survive, but, with fragments, it is difficult to identify what the text was: it could be a joke, satirical, critical, and the references are to people and characters we can only speculate about. There is no way to discern the significance. Ask Classicists what texts they most want to be found and responses might include: Homer’s lost comedy; Aristotle’s second book of Poetics which covered comedy; Euclid’s book of logical fallacies; Ovid’s Medea; the plays that beat the plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides in competition; and Longinus’ works on Homer. And, of course, the whole Library of Alexandria, which, if it had survived, would have altered the course of human history. Sigh.  

Texts have been lost because they were deliberately destroyed but also due to fire, corruption, neglect, reuse as another text or reuse as toilet paper. Texts have been found when used as packing paper, in sealed storage containers, among debris, or written over which come to us as palimpsests. The stories of these texts’ survival are mostly an ongoing process spanning millennia. (See Josephine Balmer’s 2017 The Paths of Survival, for a poetic exploration of the provenance of an ancient text.)

When you read ancient classical texts you need to adjust yourself to becoming comfortable with ‘the rest is lost’. For good translations of fragments the translator aims to replicate the source, not just translating words and mimicking the sounds, wordplay, and other literary devices, but also the gaps in the text, indicated by brackets or the layout on the page.  

In 2014 US Professor of Classics, Diane Rayor, was about to publish her translations of the ‘complete’ works of Sappho when new fragments were found. She needed to re-evaluate what she thought she knew to incorporate these new pieces of the puzzle. She says that fragments offer intriguing possibilities, echoing broken conversations, trailing voices. Australian Professor of Classics, Marguerite Johnson, agrees there is a pleasure in working with fragments: ‘I really don't want them ever to be completed, filled in, finalised. Their fragmentary condition makes them special, unique, and I really can't image Sappho actually composing anything complete.’ (This quote is from personal correspondence. You can check all other references in books or online academic journals written by experts, who became experts due to scholarship).

We need to challenge assumptions and check the facts and check the sources for the facts. What do we know and how do we know it? What is the provenance? Not just in the light of generative AI, but for everything. And when we talk about bias, we need to consider the audience, purpose, and context of the producer. What was their agenda? What were they aiming to do? What do they value? What do they disregard? This is more difficult when applied to texts generated by AI.  

And when we observe that history can be rewritten, texts can be rewritten, and that news reports of current events can be inaccurate, biased, and just wrong, then how do we check that we understand the events of history and the development of ideas? In my own lifetime I have witnessed how the music of the 1980s has been misrepresented; the nostalgia radio stations playing ‘the best’ music of that decade is certainly not the music that was valued at the time and was actively despised in the share houses I lived in during the 1980s. 

Generative AI writes the commonly held ideas from all sources. Those sources are not consistent, not authorised, not experts, and not challenged. It is like the passed down received meaning of texts that are lost, found, fragmented, translated, and compiled with bias. It mimics human writing but is not human. 

Humans bring their whole selves, influenced by all the factors that make that person an individual. We share a collective humanity. We want to engage with scholarship; we want to pursue our intellectual curiosity; we want to use texts as tools to think with; we want to share our thinking and test our thinking. We want to engage as humans, and we want students to engage as humans. And we know that people are more valuable than bots for doing this thinking together. So long as we check our sources, this is what scholarship is. 

What is Intersectionality?

 Intersectionality is a matrix of power structures where people plot themselves and other people on the matrix to show where they sit within hierarchies of power on the basis of identity markers.

The hierarchies are power spectrums according to race, sexuality, religion, gender (which also includes gender identity) and physical ability. Class is sometimes included. The spectrum puts white people as high, and black people as low; heterosexual as high and homosexual as low; men as high and women as low (but trans people as lower); Christians as high and all other religions as low; able bodied people as high and disabled people as low. 

The assumption is that the people at one end of the spectrum, according to binaries, are privileged and the people on the other end are oppressed. Intersectionality assigns feelings to those they declare to be privileged, saying they ought to feel guilt and shame, and that the oppressed ought to feel victimised. This is regardless of the lived experience of those people. It assumes that anybody who is privileged within this framework holds unconscious bias against others, regardless of their experience or actions. So, a white heterosexual man who is able bodied but has had a terrible life in poverty is told he is priviliged on the basis of the matrix, and that he should feel guilty for his privilege. Or a white man who is married to a black women and has black children is assumed to hold unconscious bias against black people because all white people are racist. Understandably, such men would be angry at this representation. A black lesbian who has had a successful and happy life would be surprised to be told she is a victim.

Intersectionality pigeon-holes people according to factors mostly beyond their control which are due to accidents of birth. It is illiberal. It denies the experience of the individual. It reinforces stereotypes. It dictates how people should feel about themselves and others. In a liberal democracy people have the right to feel however they feel, without compulsion or coercion.

Confusingly, lived experience is an element within critical social justice theory. Alongside intersectionality is the idea that a person’s lived experience holds greater value than the work of researchers or academics or experts in their field. Within critical justice theory, experts are only permitted to speak about power issues if they have lived experience. 

Within the intersectionality framework the power spectrum is flipped, so that the voices of the people at the lower scale are amplified and the voices of the people at the higher scale are silenced. In order to be heard, people must identify as powerless, in order to gain power. It values oppression as a virtue, even if that oppression is not due to accidents of birth but as a selected identity (which is possibly unproven). 

The term comes from the US Law academic Kimberlé Crenshaw, and applies postmodernist theory. 

Within feminism this is third wave intersectional feminism. It dilutes feminism, because it fractures the basis for women's rights which is biological sex.

Universities are now teaching this as doctrine. The arguments against these theories are not taught. It is now the dominant lens for viewing social construction and morality and has spawned ideas of trigger warnings, microaggressions, safe spaces, and political correctness, which are not evidenced to have value. The proponents of the ideology do not defend their position. They have created their own canon and created their own high priests. While the moral impulse to help others is to be applauded, the structures of the application are a problem. Do we all need to know everything about each other? No. In the workplace and professional organisations it is not necessary, in fact, it is a breach of privacy. In these situations we need to simply do our work and behave professionally. Why create means to divide people into smaller and smaller categories when we could, instead, emphasise the commonalities which draw people together? 

Philosopher Peter Boghossian has called Intersectionality a new religion. He quotes US Law professor and writer, Alan Dershowitz, calling it `the phoniest academic doctrine I have encountered in 53 years”. 

Why teaching that all texts are problematic is a bad idea

This essay argues that approaching all texts as problematic, according to identity politics and systems of power, is a bad idea. Two years ago I would have argued the opposite, and I did.

In my essay Homer, Paul Ramsay and Me: Rewriting the mythology of Western civilisation, published in Meanjin, I tracked the development of the idea that we teach to defend western civilization and how classics and feminism might be positioned within this. My academic field is feminist classical receptions. 

This is the paragraph I would now retract.

I’ve been following the arguments made by John Howard, Tony Abbott, Kevin Donnelly, Christopher Pyne and Barry Spurr regarding education for some years. My summary is that they are afraid of postmodernism, critical theory, multimodal texts, identity politics, multiculturalism, feminism and cultural relativism. In 2010 John Howard described senior school English courses as embracing ‘gobbledygook’. Clearly, he dismisses ideas he doesn’t understand.

I now understand why, and I join them in their fears, although not in their politics. 

It’s not surprising that politicians call for defunding the humanities when literary theory sounds as incomprehensible as this. This professor of English and Comparative Literature is making  no sense. All theories should be tested and reviewed, and they should be explainable; they shouldn’t be taught as ideological indoctrination.  

There are writers from the right who are critiquing what is happening in educational institutions and in politics, and it is worthwhile to listen to them and engage with their ideas. However, my reference will come from some writers from the left, three thinkers who work together and separately. They are: 

Helen Pluckrose and James Lindsay, who wrote Cynical Theories: How Universities Made Everything about Race, Gender and Identity - and Why This Harms Everybody. Helen Pluckrose runs Areo magazine. James Lindsay runs New Discourses. Together with philosophy lecturer Peter Boghossian, who wrote How to Make Atheists, they wrote articles submitted to academic journals now known as the Grievance Paper Hoax. Lindsay and Boghossian also wrote How to Have Impossible Conversations: A Very Practical Guide. They all participate in Wiki Letters. You can hear an interview with Lindsay on ABC radio here.  And here is Helen Pluckrose's article in The Australian where she explains why they embarked on the Grievance Studies hoax. Pluckrose has launched a website, Counterweight, to provide support for people who need assistance.

In Cynical Theories Pluckrose and Lindsay define the problem in terms of two principles and four themes. The Postmodern Knowledge Principle (radical skepticism as to whether objective knowledge or truth is obtainable and a commitment to cultural constructivism) and The Postmodern Political Principle (a belief that society is formed of systems of power and hierarchies, which decide what can be known and how). The four themes they observe are: The blurring of boundaries; The power of language; Cultural relativism; and The loss of the individual and the universal. 

They argue for the maintenance of liberal democracy. We need a diversity of voices, not just people who write about their own experience - we want to open up rather than shut down - and add ideas to be publicly challenged and reviewed. This is what academic or scientific rigour is. This is a process, both in the academic circles and in the democratic process, that works for incremental and careful improvements to our systems of knowledge and our systems of power. They want us to see people firstly as individuals, and as individuals sharing our common humanity.  

This is their definition of liberalism:

Liberalism is perhaps best understood as a desire to gradually make society fairer, freer, and less cruel, one practical goal after another. This is because liberalism is a system of conflict resolution, not a solution to human conflicts. In being a system that works through the inputs of its participants, it offers up no one in particular in whom to place our trust, which violates our deepest human intuitions. It is not revolutionary, but neither is it reactionary: its impulse is neither to turn society on its head nor to keep it from changing. Instead, liberalism is always a work in progress.

….Liberalism’s success can be put down to a few key points. It is intrinsically goal-oriented, problem-solving, self-correcting, and - despite what postmodernists think - genuinely progressive. 

By citing them and their works here, I’m not endorsing all their tweets. These people are not gurus. They are thinking things through. 

The field of education attracts people who care about social issues and who regard education as a means of making social change for the better. While this is admirable, the means of doing this needs to be carefully monitored.

So long as educational institutions teach for ideological and political purposes, we will see resources such as this: Disrupt Texts. This US site, run by teachers for teachers, argues that all texts are problematic and that we teach for social justice outcomes. It shares approaches to texts, suggestions and resources which apply this principle. Some quotes from the website:

‘It is part of our mission to aid and develop teachers committed to anti-racist/anti-bias teaching pedagogy and practices.’

‘Apply a critical literacy lens to our teaching practices.’

‘While text-dependent analysis and close reading are important skills for students to develop, teachers should also support students in asking questions about the way that such texts are constructed. Ask: How does this text support or challenge issues of representation, fairness, or justice? How does this text perpetuate or subvert dominant power dynamics and ideologies? And how can we ask students to wrestle with these tensions? ‘

About Teaching Shakespeare:

This is about an ingrained and internalized elevation of Shakespeare in a way that excludes other voices. This is about white supremacy and colonization.

About teaching To Kill a Mockingbird

‘So, I use the feelings it engenders for them and then introduce anti-racist ideas and critical race theory to help them see the racism in the text and in their own lives.’

……...We lift it up, look under its pages, between its characters, and expose its gaps.’ 

Critical thinking means asking who is absent, about representations and biases within systems of power. This is the opposite of close reading of text. This skips the basic questions we ask when we engage with and judge the success of a text: how do the component parts of the text, from the word choice and sound effects, use of repetitions, literal and figurative language, form and features, and the use of any literary devices, contribute to textual cohesion and the meaning of the whole text? Does the writer achieve an impact on the reader, that is either conveying a situation effectively or bringing the reader along a process of thinking, according to purpose and context? Then we can use the text as a tool to think with, consider representations, characterisations, narrative choices, and explore how that story could be told differently. We can relate the text to our own context, knowledge and understandings about the world. We can create new texts in response. But we should not judge a text as problematic for what it is not. No text can be a celebration of all minority groups in every place at all times. Texts exist within their own contexts, and we can consider how they were received then and how we might value them differently now. 

We should not criticise a cat for not being a dog.

In our classrooms we should not be asking:

• According to identity politics, how do I problematise the text, because all texts are about systems of power in which there are the privileged and the oppressed?

• How do I bring my indignation to the text?

• How do I take offence at the text for what it is not?

This is the approach of critical race theory, and all critical grievance theories. This approach teaches students to engage combatively, and encourages the same approach to social interactions, such as use of social media. It presumes racism, even where none is present. It emphasises rather than dispels stereotypes. 

In teaching literature with an approach that every text is problematic we teach that all white people are racist and there is nothing they can do about it. That all men are sexist and if they don’t admit it then they can’t see their privilege. That all heterosexual people benefit from their privilege and that their biases are unconscious. What do we expect children to do with those messages about systems of power and their places within them? It is akin to telling children that they are born in sin. It encourages guilt, and it encourages victimhood and resentment. How does this impact student mental health in terms of their anxiety and depression? 

And where, in this approach, is the pleasure in reading and writing? There is none, except as a ‘gotcha’ moment, which is the basis for many viral tweets, posts, comments, Tik Toks and interviews. Critiquing should not just be about dragging down. Where is the room for building up? There should be room for joy. 

With this approach no text can be good. What does this mean for students when we read the texts that they have created? It means that no text a student can create can be good. So, this approach does not empower students to create successful texts. It demoralises students. 

Instead, we could ask for good thinking, applying logic supported by evidence. We can apply the principles of textual analysis and intertextuality, which are already core to the study of literature. Yes, we can read and teach a broader range of texts. Yes, we can regard these texts as talking to each other. We can ask: What does the writer do? What do the characters do? What does the text do? What do readers do? But applying critical race theory, or any critical grievance theory, is not helping the study of literature. 

I fear that teaching for social justice using applied postmodernism is akin to teaching religious indoctrination. If we endorse teaching for Social Justice then we endorse teaching for any ideology and ideological for political outcomes. 

In NSW Department of Education there is a policy called The Controversial Issues in Schools policy. Under this policy teachers and visitors to schools are not to coerce students to political views. 

1.3.1 Schools are neutral places for rational discourse and objective study.

1.3.2 Discussion of controversial issues in schools should allow students to explore a range of viewpoints and not advance the interest of any particular group.

 

A few years ago this policy did not apply to Scripture classes. The instruction during the Scripture timeslot, delivered by private providers, was exempt. Now it is included in the policy. 

2.2 This policy applies to visitors and external providers including approved special religious education providers or ethics education providers, conducting activities outside the provisions in the Religious Education Policy and Special Education in Ethics Policy.

 

Teachers are not to recruit students into religious or ideological groups. Teaching through a lens of identity politics for a social justice outcome is an ideological position. 

3.3 Attempting to recruit students or staff into non-school approved groups for religious or ideological reasons is not permitted in schools, nor are aggressive, persistent or unwanted approaches to staff and students. Staff and students may advocate for issues or activities that are important to them in a manner consistent with expectations outlined in the department’s Code of Conduct for staff and Behaviour code for students.

 

Teaching through a lens of critical race theory, or any critical grievance theory, is in breach of this policy.  

There is currently a case in the US where a parent and student are suing the school due to a civics module being compulsory at the high school. The civics module requires students to accept critical race theory.  The US government has banned professional development workshops teaching critical race theory. These programs may think that this approach teaches anti-racism; it doesn’t. It divides people by reinforcing their differences and stereotyping them according to race. 

We welcome the diversity of human experience, yes - but as individuals and as universal themes - not simply as members of identity groups, which is limiting. Most identity groups are unchangeable. If we see people firstly according to their identity group, we are judging them, paraphrasing Martin Luther King, not according to the content of their character but by the colour of their skin. We would do better to judge people according to what they do rather than who they are by accident of birth or some other self-declared identity. We could empower students not on the basis of their identity but on the basis of their actions. It is likely parents in Australia will also complain to schools or withdraw their children from public schools if they see this kind of indoctrination occurring. 

The trio of thinkers, Pluckrose, Lindsay and Boghossian, have some suggestions: Challenge new definitions. Apply science and reason in categorisations. Apply logic. Ask for evidence. Acknowledge facts. Apply Socratic enquiry. Ask what is true and what is objectively, materially, concretely real. Keep conversations respectful and open. Listen and consider. Individuals should not be compelled to represent their identity groups. We think better collaboratively so no idea should be taboo or censored but should be tested amongst others. Don’t be cynical. Support liberalism. Liberalism has provided us with real progress through the civil rights movement, women's rights and gay rights.

My own research aims to create resources to support the teaching of English without applying identity politics. I aim to create an Ovarian Poetics - looking to ancient literature to draw threads currently ignored or forgotten that refocus how we can understand and appreciate texts, arguing that we don't need to apply postmodern theories based upon French Philosophy, as we can find permissions and frameworks for literary creation, appreciation and analysis from the ancient Greeks and Romans. We can consider ancient ways of knowing and understanding, including ancient memory devices, and how we can use these to teach and learn today. We can reference texts written by a range of people over time and place. We can teach based on our shared humanity and freedom of the individual within a secular liberal democracy. We would do well to return to the principles of primary school debates and high school essays: define your terms, present a logical argument supported by evidence, and be respectful. We can be empathetic and use our imaginations. Yes, texts are tools to think with, but we need more utensils than grievance studies approaches to do literature well. We may need to agree that ‘critical thinking’ has been defined under these theories and should be renamed, as for our use in teaching English, perhaps simply as good reading and good thinking. 

We all want to make the world a better place, however we need to be careful how we go about it. We already have equal rights under the law. I’m not suggesting that there are no problems in our society; of course there are. But the means of addressing these problems should not be such that they embed more problems. The means are the end. How we get there is what we get. War begets war. Peace begets peace. In the English classroom we can grow cynicism or we can grow joy. 

Let's apply some critical thinking to Christmas

Now that we have critical thinking embedded in every educational institution, we should expect that our traditions will be challenged. Is doing something on the basis of tradition a good enough reason?

Let’s ask some questions about Christmas.

Is December 25 Jesus’ birthday? Some will say that Jesus is the reason for the season, and that celebrating him is the ‘true meaning of Christmas’. This doesn’t hold up to examination. There is nothing in the gospels about Jesus being born in December. In the early Christian communities the birth of Jesus was not celebrated because the story of Jesus’ birth hadn’t started yet. Emperor Constantine, who declared Christianity the official religion for the Roman Empire, declared in 336 AD that December 25 would be celebrated as the birth of Jesus. This was reinforced by Pope Julius I a few years later. The first recorded use of the word Christmas was in Old English in 1038 CE. The words ‘true meaning of Christmas’ were first used on the blurb for Dickens’ book ‘A Christmas Carol’.

Does the celebration have pagan roots, and is it about winter? We know that Christmas replaced a winter solstice celebration in the Northern Hemisphere. It makes sense to have a festival when winters are cold and long and people are prone to depression. The early Puritan settlers of America banned the celebration of Christmas because of its pagan roots. Why are we in Australia decorating everything in fake snow, eating plum pudding and singing about Jingle Bells? Why do we sing carols by candlelight in a heatwave during daylight savings? Celebrating a winter wonderland doesn’t make sense in Australia, where it is hot and we all go swimming.

Is Santa real? The conspiracy about Santa is deep and broad. Adults behave as if he exists. They talk to children as if Santa really does know if they have been naughty or nice, and that he will sneak into their house at night and leave presents. Shopping malls and the post office are complicit with the lie. We can track the story of St Nicholas, through to the 1922 story of ‘The Night Before Christmas’ and the Coca Cola image of Santa as a jolly fat man wearing a red suit with white trim. The practice of exchanging gifts began in the late 1800s. Christmas became a national holiday in the US in 1870.

Is Santa good for parents? Parents have the power to reward and punish children if they choose. They could accept that power rather than defer it to a fictional middle man. It would be honest and transparent and grow trust. As children grow, parents tell them they need to believe to receive, as if that is logical and a good philosophy for life. It is strange that parents lie to keep their children happy then children pretend to believe to keep their parents happy. Is this a good model for relationships?

Is Christmas good for women? Christmas is run by women; they do all the work to keep it going. Women put toys on layby mid-year and keep track of gifts children might like. They organise the food and do the cooking. They organise the relatives and try to make sure everyone is happy for the big day. This brings into question the unpaid work women do. This is work women could just stop doing. We could give the work of Christmas to men and see what happens. We could let children know they are dealing with their mothers directly, and women could accept the credit for the work they do. It makes no sense for women to do the work of gathering gifts and giving the credit to a fictional fat man. It works against the goal of gender equality.

Is Christmas good for the environment? The way we celebrate Christmas has an enormous environmental impact. We spend time shopping, buying gifts packaged in plastic, then wrap them in paper that is bought especially and used once. We buy gifts for people who need nothing new. We wrap the biggest thing we have, our houses, in Christmas lights. We buy more food than we can eat. It makes no sense to save energy, to reduce, reuse and recycle for eleven months of the year, and then create enormous amounts of waste in celebrating Christmas.

We can celebrate when and how we like. Christmas does not have one true meaning. The meaning is constructed, contested, and evolving. We should be challenging ourselves to celebrate according to our values - our real values - not the ones we are told we should hold. This may be uncomfortable, as learning often is. No-one ever said that applying critical thinking makes a person popular. But asking questions should be acceptable, shouldn’t it?

Managing Fertility

I watched Exposed on ABC - the documentary investigating the case of Keli Lane, and I have some thoughts.

Yes, the case was poorly investigated, and yes it was sexist. I don’t know what happened to baby Tegan. But here is my thinking. No man has ever been in a position that Keli Lane found herself in numerous times. She fell pregnant when she didn’t want to have babies, and has been criticised for not managing her fertility. She did not create these babies alone; they were the result of men not managing their own fertility. Each pregnancy could have been avoided with the use of condoms.

Women manage their fertility all through their fertile years which encompass about thirty years of their lives. Most women would use a variety of contraceptive methods, and at various times in their lives experience some combination of an abortion, miscarriage, giving a child away for adoption, experience live birth, stillbirth, IVF, and may adopt or foster a child.

Women are thinking of their fertility every time they bleed each month. Women may not speak to many men about how they control their fertility, so it seems that men don’t see the work that it involves.

In contrast men can impregnate women and not even know.

In the argument against Keli Lane’s defence that she gave baby Tegan to the child’s biological father many people said they found such a scenario unbelievable. Why? It is not at all unusual for women to raise a child alone. It is not at all unusual for a woman to have a child with a man who then leaves. It is not at all unusual for men to not contribute financially, or in any care role, for a child he helped create. If a woman can raise a child without a partner, why can’t a man? Surely in a world where men hold most of the positions of power, a man can raise a child. Of course he can. A man is just as capable of learning care work as a woman is. The assumption is, why would any man want to? And the response to that question should lead us to a major revision of the structural impediments to the experience of raising children and of care work.

Homer, Paul Ramsay and Me: Rewriting the Mythology of Western Civilisation

I wrote this long essay over the summer holidays. The issue of the Ramsay Centre has since received lots of media attention. The membership of the board has changed - Beazley has left and Elizabeth Stone has joined. I've shown the essay to various people already - Emily Wilson liked it. I'm parking the essay here. I think it is important that we review the narratives we tell ourselves about who we are - both personally and culturally. I'm happy to discuss. 


Homer, Paul Ramsay and Me: Rewriting the Mythology of Western Civilisation

5004 words

…….

Scepticism is as much the result of knowledge, as knowledge is of scepticism. To be content with what we at present know, is, for the most part, to shut our ears against conviction; since, from the very gradual character of our education, we must continually forget, and emancipate ourselves from, knowledge previously acquired; we must set aside old notions and embrace fresh ones; and, as we learn, we must be daily unlearning something which it has cost us no small labour and anxiety to acquire.

- Theodore Alois Buckley’s introduction to Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer’s The Iliad

…………..

It is a truth universally acknowledged that scholarly appreciation of Western Literature requires a familiarity with the works of the Judeo-Christian tradition and classical mythology. I understood this to be valid, so when I attended university as a mature age student in the 1990s I did a major in Myth and Ancient Literature in translation along with an English major. Having been raised as a Catholic I thought I had the Judeo-Christian part covered.

It turned out not to be so simple.

I wrote my master’s thesis on a feminist rewriting of Greek mythology. I was already a feminist and interested in how a rewriting showed other aspects of these stories. What I found was that inserting an agenda didn’t necessarily make for satisfying storytelling.

In 2017 my daughter studied The Odyssey and rewritings of The Odyssey in her Preliminary Extension English class. I re-engaged with my academic interest to deliver some presentations to her class and found there is a lot happening in this field that is unsettling and problematic.

2017 was a big year for classics. Five novels rewriting Greek myth were published, based on the stories of Oedipus, The Oresteia, The Odyssey, Antigone, and The Argonautica. The first translation of The Odyssey into English by a woman was published, as was Stephen Fry’s retellings of Greek myths. Writers are working on retellings of The Iliad, and other works.

The works of the ancient classical Greco-Roman world have long been regarded as the basis for Western Civilisation, Western Literature and Art. Using ancient texts as the basis for Western Civilisation has embedded power structures which privilege some and oppress others. Goethe speculated that the course of human history would have been better if our ancient text had been the works of Homer rather than the Bible. I doubt it, since the power structures that have evolved from each are the same. According to the received idea of Western Civilisation, we have both. Early Christianity saw St Jerome and St Augustine struggle with reconciling their faith with their love of classics, but, somehow, this reconciliation became the norm. We tried operating under the power of the church without the influence of classics and ended up in the Dark Ages. The Renaissance, with its appreciation of the classics, brought us back to curiosity, creativity, innovation and development. We know that in moving from the works of Homer to the Bible we shifted from polytheism to monotheism, from fluid texts to a sacred text, and from moral relativism to moral absolutism.

……..

I sacked

the town and killed the men. We took their wives

and shared their riches equally among us.

Homer, The Odyssey IX. 41–43 (tr Emily Wilson) 

………... 

We used to study history as a grand narrative leading to a celebration of Western Civilisation. We now study history in a more global way, acknowledging that geographical divisions are not so clear, that hierarchies of power were applied, that interconnections are important, and that, with limited evidence, our idea of any historical period is simplified and constructed. We now look at social history. We consider the validity of evidence. There really was no Golden Age that was good for everyone.

Historian Yuval Noah Harari writes in Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind ‘Most sociopolitical hierarchies lack a logical or biological basis — they are nothing but the perpetuation of chance events supported by myths.’ Although there is some archaeological evidence to support the idea that myths are based upon historical events (the fall of Troy, the golden fleece, warrior women), these stories are not to be read as historical, but as stories to help us make sense of our lives, of our relationship with the gods, and to explain the unexplainable. In the absence of knowledge about physics, germs, the planets, or any theories of psychology, storytelling helped us feel there was some explanation for natural forces and human behaviour. The gods may be capricious and their will unknowable, but at least people could try to have some influence on what happened to them. The Greek gods were said to have started with Hesiod and Homer. Hesiod was a farmer who claimed Dionysus told him to write. Homer was a blind oral poet, whose works were written down. Attributed to him are hymns to pagan gods, The Iliad, The Odyssey, and a comedy which did not survive. Homer’s works glorify the heroes of war and their immortality in storytelling and song. Oral stories were also shared amongst neighbouring populations — Mesopotamians, Babylonians, Etruscans, Phoenicians. There are no autograph copies of any classical work; every surviving text has been copied, translated and constructed. These stories were always fluid and there was never one sacred version. Even in antiquity, Greek mythology was explained and rationalised by the author known as Palaephatus in the fourth century BCE. In On Incredible Tales he explains how some stories were based on misinterpreted events, or based on metaphors which were then literalised. For example, Pandora was not made of clay but was a woman who used clay as make-up. Centaurs were the first men to ride horses, not half-man and half-horse. The mythical stories were rewritten in ancient times. Some only survived due to Islamic cultures keeping them alive.

Perhaps only ten percent of ancient classical literature has survived; it is impossible to know. Works written on to papyrus rather than parchment disintegrated. The rest was repurposed, destroyed by fire when the Library of Alexandria was burnt, or not copied (mostly comedies, autobiography, erotica and writing by women, slaves or minorities) or deliberately destroyed due to judgement about the content (the works of Sappho).

Who owns these stories? The surviving works were claimed by white men for their own purposes. Joan Didion writes in The White Album, ‘A place belongs forever to whoever claims it hardest, remembers it most obsessively, wrenches it from itself, shapes it, renders it, loves it so radically that he remakes it in his own image.’ So with classical literature. White men claimed that these stories are universal and speak to what it is to be human. If that were true, there would be stories about childbirth (rather than Zeus, a serial rapist, incubating children in his thigh and his head, and Leda laying eggs), about menopause (I’m still looking), and they would all pass the Bechdel test: that two named female characters talk about something other than a man (they don’t). We have been taught that male is the norm and the default. It is not.

Yes, the ancient Greeks informed our thinking about philosophy, literature, mathematics, natural sciences, theatre, art and government. We refer to 5th century BCE Greece as the Golden Age. Literary devices, scenes and tropes can be traced from ancient classical texts through the Bible and beyond, but let’s be clear-eyed about who ancient Greeks and Romans were. Theirs were slave-based societies. Women had no power. The first book of The Odyssey includes Telemachus telling his mother, Penelope, to return upstairs to her private quarter because speaking is the business of men. The Iliad opens with the anger of Achilles because Agamemnon had taken his slave girl. In ancient Rome the best regarded woman was one who never spoke in the company of men. Men having sex with pubescent boys was unremarkable. Perhaps ten percent of the population was literate.

………...

My name is Noman. 

Homer, The Odyssey IX. 366 (tr. Emily Wilson) 

………

Once these stories were claimed as their own by white men, white men from various backgrounds, multi-white men (even though the writers were olive-skinned), they become encoded in power systems. Under patriarchy and colonisation the people without power knew that being on board with ancient literature was a code to accessing power on multi-white male terms. To be educated required those outside of the power group (not male, not rich, not white, not straight) to obtain this education, a classical education, in order to access power — to share cultural references and deserve a seat at the table. This is how the world came to operate. Women who knew ancient Greek and Latin sought to be recognised as serious scholars. The colonised who adopted these stories as their own must be on the side of the powerful. The colonised took on the culture of the colonisers and were expected to be grateful, or to be exterminated. We could examine this dynamic in terms of our current idea of cultural appropriation and why taking on the culture of the powerful is expected, yet taking on the culture of the oppressed was regarded as ‘going native’ but now is seen as disrespectful. What do we mean by cultural exchange between unequal powers?

Importantly, these stories are described as seminal texts rather than ovarian texts.

We learn that multi-white male writing is good writing. That multi-white male leadership is good leadership. In retrospect we can call this social engineering. It becomes embedded in our culture. Ancient cultures from all over the world have been excluded from this story because they were unknown to multi-white men. We could have as the basis for our culture many other influences: Pacific Islander dancing; Aboriginal dreamtime; the works of Confucius; Arabic music; Japanese theatre; a matriarchal tribe; depending on the accidents of history and the weapons of aggressors. We will never know the consequences of the paths not travelled and the potential influence of artefacts lost. Instead we have been taught that multi-white male subjectivity is objectivity. It isn’t. While leaving out the contentious idea of what is ‘Western Civilisation’, to claim these texts as the basis for our values today is insulting to everyone not represented, who has values based on anything that is not recognised by multi-white men. We may well ask who owns values.

……..

But now, the winds have seized him,

and he is nameless and unknown. 

Homer, The Odyssey, I. 241–2 (tr Emily Wilson) 

…………..

Women have been translating and rewriting these stories to insert what has been silenced, challenging the embedded power structures. Each retelling or rewriting or new story, of both the stories themselves and the idea of Western Civilisation, either challenges or champions the traditional power structures. It is notable that the first translation of The Odyssey by a women into English has been published only in November 2017. The gendered slurs are absent. The maids are not maids but slaves. It matters.

Thinking about how the classics have been used in power systems is called Critical Classical Reception Studies. In the UK this work has been led by Professor Edith Hall who has written about class, gender and ethnicity in ancient sources. Currently, the online journal, Eidolon, edited by Dr Donna Zuckerberg in the USA, seeks to champion the study of classics, but reads them for social justice and equality in a feminist, inclusive and progressive way. While classics, specifically Tacitus’ description of Germanic people as noble savages admired for their pure blood, are being claimed as a source of entitlement for white supremacists, as they were for the Nazis, a counter argument must be made. We know that histories written in ancient Greece and Rome were based on limited information, containing imaginative writing to fill in the gaps, and were written in specific contexts for particular purposes and audiences.

The most visible faces of classics at the moment are women’s. Yet, these women are being disparaged. In the review of three novels rewriting Greek myth published in the Sydney Morning Herald in April 2017 a male reviewer described Natalie Haynes’ Afterword in her novel as ‘chatty’. He derides her novel as flat-toned, as is the fashion, he says, for young writers, and the dialogue too commonplace. His review favoured the two male writers. One he describes as brilliant, giving substance, probability and psychological reality to these creatures of myth. The other male’s novel is described as an impressive tour-de-force. The reviewer praises the sparse use of dialogue, and lack of finite verbs. When he says the novel becomes more conventional, he accepts this without criticism. The reviewer is blind to one of the male writers having thanked Haynes for helping him. Haynes is a classicist and broadcaster who champions the study of classics.

Another classicist, Professor Mary Beard, also received media attention in 2017. She published a short book of two lectures, entitled Women and Power. Worryingly, an endorsement on the book jacket from the Financial Times reads: ‘An irrepressible enthusiast with a refreshing disregard for convention.’ Mary Beard is a Professor of Classics at the University of Cambridge. In terms of scholarship, one can’t go any higher. She is not an ‘enthusiast’. I also wonder what is meant by her disregard for convention. That she doesn’t dye her hair? That she is an older women with a public presence? Or that she argues for women’s rights?

Penelope is still being told to go to her room.

These power systems from ancient texts and the received idea of Western Civilisation aren’t working out well for lots of people. Universities in the UK, USA and South Africa are grappling with accusations of teaching white supremacy and denying history. The Rhodes Must Fall campaign challenges the legacy of exploitation of ‘the colonies’. Right wing nationalism is rising in Europe and the USA. Southern states of the USA are dealing with confederate memorials. And, across the world, we can still measure various forms of gender inequality.

………….

How prone to doubt, how cautious are the wise! 

- Homer, The Odyssey VIII. 375 (tr Alexander Pope)

…………..

Yet the arguments are still being made that our society, in Australia, a multicultural society, founded on Aboriginal land, the home of our country’s indigenous people, has values based upon Western Civilisation. According to John Howard, quoted in the Financial Review: ‘Western civilisation has got to be taught as the contribution of Greek and Roman heritage, the Judeo-Christian ethic, the Enlightenment and the British iteration of parliamentary democracy and civil and common law. And of course the Protestant revolution — because of the role it gave to the individual.’

John Howard is Chair of the Board of Directors for the new Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation. The Board oversees the three billion dollar endowment by Paul Ramsay, who ran Ramsay Health Care and owned a network of television stations. The endowment is to fund undergraduate and postgraduate scholarships to be delivered by two NSW/ACT universities. The aim is for Australians to ‘learn to value their own civilisational heritage’. Ramsay was Catholic and friends with Tony Abbott, who is on the Board.

The CEO for the Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation is Professor Simon Haines. He told Catholic Outlook that when teaching poetry in China there was a ‘thirst for knowledge of the West’. ‘In many cases, what they would have studied would be quite a limited curriculum,’ he said, because of Marxism. Catholic Outlook reported:

The Ramsay Scholarships will support the growing interest in the West’s intellectual, spiritual and artistic heritage.

The Ramsay Centre’s educational program will have a broad curriculum in the ‘best which has been thought and said in the world’.

‘We’re hoping for this to be non-ideological; putting the focus on the Great Books.’

He told Campion College graduates that after studying the liberal arts, the thread from ‘romantic poetry to merchant banking makes more sense’.

Great books programs typically include Homer, Plato, Aristotle, Virgil, Marcus Aurelius, sacred scripture, St Augustine, Chaucer, Machiavelli, St Thomas More, Shakespeare, Milton, Jane Austen and modern writers.

Note there is no definition of ‘the best’, nor ‘great books’, no acknowledgement that anything worthwhile has been said outside his idea of Western Civilisation and no understanding that his proposed program is already ideologically based and a limited curriculum, as every curriculum must be. There is no acknowledgement that people from the East may be interested in the West due to systems of power. Note all the books are by multi-white men except Austen, who wrote mildly comical novels satirising her society, in which women grapple with love and financial security and somehow it ends happily ever after. Austen who is safe. There is no Virginia Woolf or Toni Morrison or Angela Carter or any other woman who has contributed to our thinking about what it is to be human. And no Sappho.

The link to merchant banking is telling.

Haines was interviewed by Geraldine Doogue on ABC radio. She asked what would happen if the course turned out to be more about critiquing than celebrating Western Civilisation. He said the funding would be withdrawn. She asked about the impact of imperialism and colonisation, which didn’t work out well for many people. He said the corrective in thinking about this had swung too far with an equal rights agenda and identity politics — we need to focus on the big picture. When Doogue asked if the course will be taught through the male gaze, he groaned.

In the December Quadrant Haines acknowledged the criticism of the proposed course, saying his detractors either argue that Western Civilisation doesn’t exist or that it shouldn’t. He argues that the institutions of Western Civilisation have permitted this freedom of speech. He writes ‘why should a few current, crude political obsessions deny school leavers, or indeed older students, access to this vast centuries-long conversation about the meaning of life—of their own lives?’ Nevermind about the systemic oppression of women, colonised peoples and anyone else who isn’t male and white. If freedom of speech has eventually permitted the vote for women and freedom from slavery how long does he expect us to be grateful?

In May 2017 the Sydney Morning Herald published Tony Abbott’s piece entitled The West's high culture is the best antidote to discrimination. He writes about his disappointment in people criticising Australia and its values, particularly Yassmin Abdel-Magied’s tweet on Anzac day —“Lest we forget (Manus, Nauru, Syria, Palestine)” — and claims there is a ‘cultural cowardice at the heart of our institutions’. His recommendation is pride in our Western civilisation. He laments trigger warnings and political correctness. In talking about Australians he says ‘Believers or not, they know that Gospel values are the best way to live. They appreciate that freedom of speech might not create a single job; because it's done so much more than that. It's created a civilisation: the only one yet in human history that's provided every citizen with the necessities of life.’ Then he glorifies the little people who struggle in substandard conditions providing goods and services. He defends the church: ‘we respect the Christian church even though its adherents are all-too-human, because it turns our minds and hearts and souls to the higher things’. Never mind about the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse. Never mind about all the Australians whose material needs are not being met. Abbott was a Rhodes scholar, yet it is difficult to imagine him spending his evenings at the opera or reading Virgil in Latin.

Also on the board are Joe de Bruyn, a socially conservative Catholic trade union official and member of the ALP executive; Peter Evans, a member of Sydney Anglicans and an accountant; Julian Leeser, a Catholic lawyer; Kim Beazley; Michael Siddle and Tony Clark. According to The Guardian, Howard and Beazley are united in calling identity politics a ‘cancer’, and in their concern for the fading confidence in democracy. Never mind that there may be other reasons for that fading confidence.

For a centre for education, there is a paucity of educators and an abundance of conservative Christians.

I’ve been following the arguments made by John Howard, Tony Abbott, Kevin Donnelly, Christopher Pyne and Barry Spurr regarding education for some years. My summary is that they are afraid of postmodernism, critical theory, multimodal texts, identity politics, multiculturalism, feminism and cultural relativism. In 2010 John Howard described senior school English courses as embracing ‘gobbledygook’. Clearly, he dismisses ideas he doesn’t understand.

The proposal that the all male board will be boosted by female appointments as an afterthought provides no comfort.

The defenders of the values of Western Civilisation remind me of Achilles having a tantrum over Agamemnon taking his slave girl.

How could studying these ancient texts, translated and constructed, advise us on addressing today’s global problems? Problems like political instability, war, sex slavery, child marriage, poverty, climate change, food and water security, obesity, cancer, diabetes, depression, anxiety, unemployment, corruption? Do not look to them for role models on how to ‘be a man’ or how to conduct respectful relationships with women.

With such an emphasis on the written word I find it ironic that two famous figures from ancient texts, Socrates and Jesus, wrote nothing themselves. Jesus only wrote with a stick in the sand, and we don’t know what he wrote. His stories, according to the writers of the gospels many years later, were parables, full of metaphors. Socrates, as represented by Plato, said that writing is ‘inhuman, pretending to establish outside the mind what in reality can be only in the mind’. It seems they were comfortable with oral storytelling and discussion.

Sometimes remembering is a burden and a trap.

So, whilst I champion any investment in the liberal arts and humanities, the idea of a Ramsey Centre for Western Civilisation fills me with dread. Either the men who champion this program do not understand what they doing, or they do. Both possibilities are frightening.

The idea of Western Civilisation is itself contested. Kwame Anthony Appiah, Professor of Philosophy and Law at New York University, writes convincingly about this in his essay There is no such thing as western civilisation. He tracks the evolution of the idea. Culturally, we have little in common with our forebears. Globalisation cannot be undone. We choose our values rather than inherit them. His arguments should be seriously considered.

The argument that these works provide the values upon which Western Civilisation is based, and that these values are worth protecting, and provide a basis for policy decision making in 2018 should also be contested. With none of these terms defined by the proponents of this argument, I read this as code to include some and exclude others on the basis of gender, race, sexuality and faith. They are fond, too, of using the term Judeo-Christian, as if all Christianities are the same, and Christianity has subsumed Judaism. The term Judeo-Christian does a disservice to both Jews and Christians. (The term Greco-Roman would have been objectionable to ancient Greeks and Romans too.) It is used as code to include Christians and exclude others. Its use is an example of how we tell stories to ourselves within structures of inclusion and exclusion. I’m curious to know how Judeo-Christian values will be taught whilst covering the history of the systematic exclusions of the Jewish people and the Holocaust.

Studying Western Civilisation at universities may result in the opposite outcome Haines, Howard and Abbott might expect. Applying critical thinking, that is, asking questions, looking for evidence to support claims, acknowledging absences, and reviewing what we think we know, could result in debunking the received idea of Western Civilisation, and challenging all the power structures the idea supports. Otherwise, we apply lazy thinking, using uncontested claims to support an ideology that maintains traditional, unfair, power structures. If the Ramsey Centre for Western Civilisation assumes the scholarships will provide a basis for Australians to respect their received ideas as the values of our civilisational heritage, they may need to think again. Frankly, I don’t see how any university that delivers this program could do so whilst being consistent with its declared values. I don’t see how any university could deliver this program whilst being consistent with its declared graduate attributes. I don’t see how any university could deliver this program without risking its reputation.

…………

It is annoying,

Repeating tales that have been told before.

- Homer, The Odyssey XII 453–4 (tr Emily Wilson) 

……………..

So, what do we do with classics? Why do people rewrite these stories, and what purpose does a rewriting serve?

In rewriting the myths a writer aims to either protect or challenge the embedded systems of power which influence us today. Some successful rewritings set the stories in other times and places. The less successful write from the point of view of a character in the ancient context using a sanctimonious tone. Setting a story in an ancient context convincingly is a difficult undertaking. Arguably, the most successful retellings are stage productions of the plays, which can show various sides of a story without being heavy handed and can translate the stories to any time and place. Perhaps a rewriting might start with all the goddesses putting Zeus on trial for being a serial rapist, and making him stop, so that no human could ever think that his behaviour is acceptable. Such a scene does not exist in ancient literature. It is possible that had such a scene existed, the course of human history would have been different.

Perhaps these stories were never ours to begin with.

What if the stories women told in kitchens and whilst laundering and taking care of children became the basis of our serious literature? What of the stories told by slaves amongst themselves? What if ancient people believed their internal thoughts were messages from gods? What if, after the Trojan War, the women swore ‘Never Again’? What if Hypsipyle always intended for Jason and his fellow travellers to impregnate the women and leave? What if the priestesses of Delphi were happy to live lives free from the attentions of men? What if Ovid was exiled for the offence of encouraging women to wear make-up to attract a man? What if evidence of all these scenes was buried in the Egyptian desert? What if the Library of Alexandria had survived? What if we give equal value to other types of meaning-making like art, dance, music? We could well ask who owns gestures, or sounds or colours or shapes or rhythms. What if we celebrate the similarities and differences in stories all over the world?

As Marguerite Johnson, Professor of Classics at the University of Newcastle, says about fairy tales, myths are good to think with.

We can keep the classics, and be curious about the understandings of ancient peoples. Their memory devices became our literary devices which are still serving us well. The principles of rhetoric are ones we could usefully resurrect. But do not look to these texts for advice on what to eat (Homer: meat and wine, meat and wine) or how to treat women, or slaves, or the colonised, or gay marriage. These texts were never set in stone. The stories are flexible enough to accommodate multiple readings, and multiple rewritings, and new works, entering into a conversation about power structures.

We need to stop saying that classical literature and the Bible are the basis for the Western Literary Canon. They used to be. They aren’t any more. They shouldn’t be. We need to stop saying that these texts provide the basis for our Australian values. They do not.

We still want to believe that people get what they deserve, if only in the afterlife, that cheats never prosper, despite evidence to the contrary, and that missing children have been so favoured by the gods that they have been taken to Mount Olympus. We need comfort when bad things happen to good people. We still read stories to critique and reflect on ourselves and our societies, and contemplate what it is to be human. We still use stories as meaning-making devices. We are still interested in portents and prophesy and whether the gods or nature care for us. But we need these stories to be available to all and to offer something that contributes to what it is to be human, not just to embed racial or gendered thinking. We want to emphasise similarities rather than differences and to include rather than divide. We need to be open. Loose-limbed. We need to listen.

In 2017 I have had much cause to think of the Dunning-Kruger effect, the psychological theory that bears out Confucius’s ‘Real knowledge is to know the extent of one's ignorance’ and Socrates’ claim, according to Plato, that he is wise in that he knows nothing. I wish I could have talked to Paul Ramsay to explain why The Ramsay Centre for Western Civilisation is a bad idea and that his three billion dollars could be better spent. That waste of money and lost opportunity makes me very sad. There is nothing bittersweet about it. I would explain that cultural stories work like personal stories. When we tell a story for the first time we collate the information, emphasising some details and omitting others, and construct it for a certain meaning. The next time we tell it is more automatic. Every time we tell the story it is further embedded. We rarely revise or retell. The story becomes part of our collection of stories that forms part of our identity. It is how oral stories solidify. But if those stories are not based on the truth and if they hurt people, they need to be revised. And I would have explained to him that, like the stories of Greek mythology, his idea of Western Civilisation needs to be fluid, because any story set in stone can be easily smashed.

……..

Someone will remember us

I say

Even in another time

- Sappho (tr Anne Carson) 

………..

A version of this essay will be presented at the Future Directions in Australasian Classical Receptions Conference at the University of Newcastle 4-5 October 2018. I am writing a guide to high school English and welcome examples of literary devices, from ab ovo to zeugma, by diverse voices, on Twitter @Classic Walshy #ovariantexts