The Greeks and the New: Novelty in Ancient Greek Imagination and Experience

by Armand D’Angour

The Greeks have long been regarded as innovators across a wide range of fields in literature, culture, philosophy, politics and science. However, little attention has been paid to how they thought and felt about novelty and innovation itself, and to relating this to the forces of traditionalism and conservatism which were also present across all the various societies within ancient Greece. What inspired the Greeks to embark on their unique and enduring innovations? How did they think and feel about the new? This book represents the first serious attempt to address these issues, and deals with the phenomenon across all periods and areas of classical Greek history and thought. Each chapter concentrates on a different area of culture or thought, while the book as a whole argues that much of the impulse towards innovation came from the life of the polis which provided its setting.

Genres: History, Classical Studies

276 pages, Hardcover

First published August 18, 2011

Reviews

[Benji · Rating 4 out of 5]

In parallel with the increasingly explicit embrace of novelty, the Greeks were familiar with the supposition or subterfuge that the new might in fact be ‘nothing new’. Assimilating novelty to tradition, and viewing innovation as no more than renovation, can often operate as conscious or unconscious mechanisms for allowing individuals and collectives to come to terms with novelty: such strategies do not reduce innovativeness, but can reframe it in a way that may be felt to make it more acceptable. The desire to avoid presenting novelty for what it is may indeed be thought a characteristic way for Greeks to allow themselves to be innovative; but no less characteristic of the Greeks is their desire to claim novelty for creative endeavours and achievements. Far from precluding novelty, an intensive engagement with the past is often a stimulus to the generation of the new.