Human and Animal in Ancient Greece: Empathy and Encounter in Classical Literature

Animals were omnipresent in the everyday life of classical Greece, and its culture was not merely anthropocentric. Through close textual analysis of ancient Greek literature, the authors present a nuanced understanding of the classical relationship to animals. They explore how different non-humans s [...]
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Animals were omnipresent in the everyday life of classical Greece, and its culture was not merely anthropocentric. Through close textual analysis of ancient Greek literature, the authors present a nuanced understanding of the classical relationship to animals. They explore how different non-humans such as domestic and wild animals, and mythological hybrid creatures were depicted in varying ways that reveal unique perspectives on categories of animal. Central to the book s enquiry is the question of empathy: investigating the ways in which ancient Greek authors invited their readers to empathise with non-human counterparts. Literary subjects discussed include the animal similes in the Iliad, the addresses to animals and nature in Sophocles Philoctetes, the human-bird hybrids in The Birds by Aristophanes and the animal protagonists of Anyte s epigrams. Throughout, the authors present an innovative methodology that combines philological and historical analysis with the philosophy of embodiment or phenomenology of the body. Shedding new light on how animals were regarded in ancient Greek society, the book will be of interest to classicists, historians, philosophers, literary scholars and all those studying empathy and the human-animal relationship."