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Speaking of simulacra, or ghosts or uncanny automata, Helen of Troy may have gone to Troy as a simulacra, at least according to Stesichorus, according to Socrates, according to Plato (Book 9 of the Republic it seems, who knew?. According to one tale, a traveller found the ghosts or simulacra of Helen and Achilles living on a Reality Show kind of island in the Black Sea in the 6th Century BC ( when their more lively selves had been dead for about 700 years) and they told the traveller to tell Stesichorus to write a poem about how fine Helen had been in reality.
Anyway so I am told in Helen of Troy and her Shameless Phantom by Norman Austin (Cornell U. Press, 1994)...
Don't worry, I know just what you are screaming about now, dear reader: you are screaming, "dear god, wasn't I bored enough by being forced to read Stesichorus for many a dreadful and tedious day? Why now? Why do we still have to read literary giants like Stesichorus? When will it ever stop? Why does anyone have to read Stesichorus? I read him and I felt sick for months. His very name makes my guts writhe! When will people learn to teach interesting things in school and not Stesichorus, Stesichorus, Stesichorus and more Stesichorus?"
Good questions and indeed one must wonder at some length about such things, especially in the case of Stesichorus, of whose entire oeuvre maybe about a dozen lines remain. Even at the rate of one word a day you could not have been bored for more than a few months by reading Stesichorus. Still, I sympathize and I realize it must have been pretty awful.
Anyway...the Helen's eidolon (ghost, image, simulacrum) goes to Troy thing. In the ancient world nobody wondered what life was like for the shameless phantom. They worried about where the real Helen went and why. A good question, but I think we moderns are a little more mature and we wonder how things went with the simulacrum.
And in Euripides' Helen (produced as the Athenian Empire fell apart and mocked by Aristophanes (the reader is allowed three tiny shrieks of Boredom! But think of how the Athenians felt!) even Helen herself wonders about the Tragic emphasis on her real self doing nothing for the whole Homeric Plot since she is blamed for what her Shameless Phantom did and notes that she is basically dead since the benefit of the Phantom is that she gets to sit in Egypt doing nothing for 17 years.
Right so, sorry you are bored. I have to go.
Anyway so I am told in Helen of Troy and her Shameless Phantom by Norman Austin (Cornell U. Press, 1994)...
Don't worry, I know just what you are screaming about now, dear reader: you are screaming, "dear god, wasn't I bored enough by being forced to read Stesichorus for many a dreadful and tedious day? Why now? Why do we still have to read literary giants like Stesichorus? When will it ever stop? Why does anyone have to read Stesichorus? I read him and I felt sick for months. His very name makes my guts writhe! When will people learn to teach interesting things in school and not Stesichorus, Stesichorus, Stesichorus and more Stesichorus?"
Good questions and indeed one must wonder at some length about such things, especially in the case of Stesichorus, of whose entire oeuvre maybe about a dozen lines remain. Even at the rate of one word a day you could not have been bored for more than a few months by reading Stesichorus. Still, I sympathize and I realize it must have been pretty awful.
Anyway...the Helen's eidolon (ghost, image, simulacrum) goes to Troy thing. In the ancient world nobody wondered what life was like for the shameless phantom. They worried about where the real Helen went and why. A good question, but I think we moderns are a little more mature and we wonder how things went with the simulacrum.
And in Euripides' Helen (produced as the Athenian Empire fell apart and mocked by Aristophanes (the reader is allowed three tiny shrieks of Boredom! But think of how the Athenians felt!) even Helen herself wonders about the Tragic emphasis on her real self doing nothing for the whole Homeric Plot since she is blamed for what her Shameless Phantom did and notes that she is basically dead since the benefit of the Phantom is that she gets to sit in Egypt doing nothing for 17 years.
Right so, sorry you are bored. I have to go.
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