The Greek Way

by Edith Hamilton

Overview

Edith Hamilton buoyantly captures the spirit and achievements of the Greek civilization for our modern world.

In The Greek Way, Edith Hamilton captures with "Homeric power and simplicity" (New York Times) the spirit of the golden age of Greece in the fifth century BC, the time of its highest achievements. She explores the Greek aesthetics of sculpture and writing and the lack of ornamentation in both. She examines the works of Homer, Pindar, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Aristophanes, and Euripides, among others; the philosophy of Socrates and Plato’s role in preserving it; the historical accounts by Herodotus and Thucydides on the Greek wars with Persia and Sparta and by Xenophon on civilized living.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393081862
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	10/25/2010
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	602,663
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Edith Hamilton (1867–1963) was made an honorary citizen of Athens because of her writings. She won the National Achievement Award and received honorary degrees from Yale University, the University of Rochester, and the University of Pennsylvania. The author of The Roman Way, Mythology, and other works, she was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Table of Contents

Preface 9

I East and West 13

II Mind and Spirit 24

III The Way of the East and the West in Art 40

IV The Greek Way of Writing 52

V Pindar, The Last Greek Aristocrat 64

VI The Athenians as Plato Saw Them 78

VII Aristophanes and the Old Comedy 94

VIII Herodotus, The First Sight-seer 122

IX Thucydides, The Thing That Hath Been Is That Which Shall Be 139

X Xenophon, The Ordinary Athenian Gentleman 153

XI The Idea of Tragedy 171

XII Æschylus, The First Dramatist 179

XIII Sophocles, Quintessence of the Greek 195

XIV Euripides, The Modern Mind 205

XV The Religion of the Greeks 215

XVI The Way of the Greeks 229

XVII The Way of the Modern World 253

References 259

Editorial Reviews

"[The Greek Way] distills the essence of classical Greece for the general reader."

Huffington Post

"Hamilton is at her best describing the tragic sensibility, the strange mixture of doom and exaltation that marks Greek drama. It was based on the conviction that good grows out of bad, virtue out of hardship, and that wisdom is born in suffering."

David Brooks