Celebrations are a joyous time of reuniting with family and friends. But afterward, people can sometimes be left uneasily mulling over their relationships. Annual returns home can induce an uncomfortable nostalgia in the tension between how the past is remembered and how the present is experienced. As someone who studies ancient Greek myth and poetry, I often find myself making sense of my own life through my work. Even though many Greek myths are infamous for disturbing topics such as infanticide and incest, ancient audiences did look to their stories to make sense of themselves and their world. What most people may remember from Greek myth are heroes like Hercules or Theseus, who make the world safe for other human beings by killing threatening monsters or punishing criminal humans. Hercules' killing of the hydra, a dragon with regrowable heads, as one of his labors represent the forces of civilization conquering nature. At a fundamental level, these kinds of stories center on how...
learn more
