This month we also hear from Dr. Ruth McKimmie, who is undertaking her second PhD at the University of Newcastle. Drawing on her first PhD in Psychology, Ruth’s honours project was a retelling of the Medea myth in an Australian setting. For her second Ph.D. Ruth is working with Prof. Marguerite Johnson in Classics and Ancient History, and Dr Michael Sala in English and Creative Writing. The rest, Ruth can tell you herself!
Going Mad with Classical Reception
I first became interested in classical reception when I was about seven or eight, reading myths and legends in my infant school library. (I can still remember the room, and the shelf and corner of the room in which these particular books were kept!) My love of these stories continued but they were completely absent from my high school Ancient History studies. So I put away childish things, instead falling asleep at my desk reading Bury on Greece and Carey on Rome — it was the 1970s!
In pursuit of employment prospects I eventually studied Psychology at the University of London where I was reacquainted with the story of Oedipus, courtesy of Freud. My PhD, however, was determinedly scientific and experiment-based, despite my best efforts to emphasise qualitative rather than quantitative research.
After my psychology-enabled career I came back to the classics via a somewhat circuitous route. In an attempt to improve my storytelling skills I enrolled in a BA at the University of Newcastle in Australia intending to major in Creative Writing and English literature. But I wanted to know how the stories had started because it soon became obvious to me that so many stories are simply retellings of earlier stories. I had this sense that there was this “Canon” that I should at least be familiar with, and that led me back to the Greek and Roman myths and legends and their various literary expressions. And of course, understanding these more fully also led me into learning a bit more about the history of the peoples of the Mediterranean from the time of the Homeric epics and of the Roman Empire. So I did end up in my late 50s with a Bachelor of Arts majoring in English and Creative Writing, but I also majored in Ancient History and Classical Languages.
When it was first suggested to me that I might like to undertake postgraduate study in Classics I was determined to combine my love of storytelling, ancient history and psychology in my honours project. I used historical techniques in order to further my knowledge of the history of lunacy and lunatic asylums particularly within the Australian context, and my new classical knowledge in drawing on the Medea myth to find a frame for telling a story. Finally, I used my improved storytelling skills in creating my own piece of classical reception — re-writing Euripides’ Medea, and setting it in an Australian lunatic asylum in the early 19th century.
I am trying now to continue this process at a higher level in my second PhD. I’m interested in comparing the ancient Greek understanding and literary expression of madness with that of the modern world. I wonder how different things would be in the modern world if we still had the ideas of the ancient Greeks, and conversely how the Greek expression of madness and its use in literature would be different had they had some of our modern understandings.
I will be drawing heavily on another Euripides’ play: The Bacchae. I will be writing my own version, setting it in a modern Australian context. It’s very early days in this process and I’m still getting my head around some of the ancient Greek ideas, and re-familiarising and updating myself on modern conceptions of madness in both the medical/psychiatric and popular realms. I wish I knew Greek so that I could read and understand the material in the original, and maybe by the time I finish with this part time endeavour I may be able to do some of that. But in the meantime I am dependent on translations, which, of course, are another form of classical reception.
At this point, one of the ideas which has caught my attention is that of madness as something that came from outside, put in you by the gods as they used you to achieve their own objectives. For example, Zeus raises the mad fury of battle in Patroklos (Iliad 16.685); Helen blames Aphrodite for making her crazy (Odyssey 4.261); and Dionysus maddens the women of Thebes (Bacchae 32-9) and is seen as responsible for the fear or frenzy of warriors before battle (Bacchae 305). Concomitant with this is the idea that madness is generally temporary, coming from and returning to a place outside of oneself.
These ideas are somewhat different to those of the 21st century in which madness is viewed as having a biological, rather than supernatural origin—due to an imbalance of hormones and neurotransmitters rather than divine interference. Today, rather than propitiations to the gods, we look to medicine and various psychological practices to achieve an appropriate biochemical balance in the brain and to modify disconcerting or maladaptive thought and behaviours. And while much mental distress is viewed as temporary, there are many for whom madness is a long-term, even permanent condition, only partly alleviated by medicine and psychological therapy.
In my creative work, it is these kinds of different ideas I wish to explore. What does the Bacchae look like in the 21st century? How might we explain the undeniably mad behaviours it displays? How might 21st-century understandings of madness change aspects of the story?
I look forward to keeping the readers of the CRSN Blog informed as this journey continues. And I welcome any suggestions or comments on this project.