Post by byz on Aug 23, 2005 6:20:16 GMT -5
Hey guys - this is a rough thesis I've been working on. I would appreciate your comments, and perhaps also to discuss different points of view about the issue. 
In Our Own Image
Perceptions of Ancient Greece have played important roles in Western Academic history, as well as in Greek culture and politics. During the Middle Ages, Latin academics were beginning to take greater interest in the works of Ancient Greek writers. Rivalry between Latin states and the Byzantine Empire, however, resulted in divergence between Latin perceptions of Ancient Greece, and Byzantine Greek perceptions of Ancient Greece. When the latter fell to the Ottoman Turks in the 1500’s, the former was in the process of Renaissance. The importance, which the Romans had given to Ancient Greek thought, was reinvented by later Latin academia, who formed a distinct, idealised image of the ancient Greek world. This Renaissance, which expanded to become a greater European movement, helped lead to the invention of the notion of, ‘the West’. Greece, under Ottoman domination, was largely excluded from this formation. Though the arrival of many Greek emigrants to northern and southern Italy after the fall of Constantinople helped to fuel the Renaissance through the translation of Ancient Greek works and the Greek New Testament, a distinct Western idyll of Ancient Greece was being disseminated. This idyll perhaps reached it’s zenith with Erasmus attempts to reconstruct the pronunciation of Ancient Greek. This new system of pronunciation emphasised perceived disparities between Medieval and Ancient Greek. Whilst this alienated Greeks from the study of ‘the Classics’, it strengthened the Western interest in the Ancient World. This cultural disassociation is solidified when this new, pan-European, Western academia begins to refer to the Ancient Greeks as, Our Ancestors. When Greece was liberated from Ottoman occupation it was a far cry from the Western idyll of Greece. Contacts between the West’s interest in Ancient Greece and the newly liberated Greek state resulted in fusions, clashes or crossovers between the Greek image of Ancient Greece, and the Western idyll. This is demonstrated by the philhellenes of France and Britain, perhaps best represented by Byron; and also by Fallmerayers’ (History of the Peninsula of Morea in the Middle Ages) theory of ethnic discontinuity. Hitler also employed this Western idyll of Ancient Greece; and the recently concocted ethnic discontinuity theories became justification for the invasion of Greece. Whilst Greek culture had been developing in Greece under various political and religious systems for 2, 500 years, cultural perceptions of Ancient Greek thought, established by the Romans, elaborated by the Latin states, and fed by isolation from Greece, became an idealised historical foundation for the formation of the pan-European West. Two related, but not synonymous, realms of thought and identification collided when Greece became a modern state.
In Our Own Image
Perceptions of Ancient Greece have played important roles in Western Academic history, as well as in Greek culture and politics. During the Middle Ages, Latin academics were beginning to take greater interest in the works of Ancient Greek writers. Rivalry between Latin states and the Byzantine Empire, however, resulted in divergence between Latin perceptions of Ancient Greece, and Byzantine Greek perceptions of Ancient Greece. When the latter fell to the Ottoman Turks in the 1500’s, the former was in the process of Renaissance. The importance, which the Romans had given to Ancient Greek thought, was reinvented by later Latin academia, who formed a distinct, idealised image of the ancient Greek world. This Renaissance, which expanded to become a greater European movement, helped lead to the invention of the notion of, ‘the West’. Greece, under Ottoman domination, was largely excluded from this formation. Though the arrival of many Greek emigrants to northern and southern Italy after the fall of Constantinople helped to fuel the Renaissance through the translation of Ancient Greek works and the Greek New Testament, a distinct Western idyll of Ancient Greece was being disseminated. This idyll perhaps reached it’s zenith with Erasmus attempts to reconstruct the pronunciation of Ancient Greek. This new system of pronunciation emphasised perceived disparities between Medieval and Ancient Greek. Whilst this alienated Greeks from the study of ‘the Classics’, it strengthened the Western interest in the Ancient World. This cultural disassociation is solidified when this new, pan-European, Western academia begins to refer to the Ancient Greeks as, Our Ancestors. When Greece was liberated from Ottoman occupation it was a far cry from the Western idyll of Greece. Contacts between the West’s interest in Ancient Greece and the newly liberated Greek state resulted in fusions, clashes or crossovers between the Greek image of Ancient Greece, and the Western idyll. This is demonstrated by the philhellenes of France and Britain, perhaps best represented by Byron; and also by Fallmerayers’ (History of the Peninsula of Morea in the Middle Ages) theory of ethnic discontinuity. Hitler also employed this Western idyll of Ancient Greece; and the recently concocted ethnic discontinuity theories became justification for the invasion of Greece. Whilst Greek culture had been developing in Greece under various political and religious systems for 2, 500 years, cultural perceptions of Ancient Greek thought, established by the Romans, elaborated by the Latin states, and fed by isolation from Greece, became an idealised historical foundation for the formation of the pan-European West. Two related, but not synonymous, realms of thought and identification collided when Greece became a modern state.
