With the fifth version of the HeroesX project opening on Jan. 6, we would like to reflect upon the hero and heroic tradition. In the featured video, Gregory Nagy talks about the suffering of heroes in an attempt to elaborate on the choice of violent ends for heroes by Greek tragedians.
Gregory Nagy comments that “if the hero is larger than life—and he or she is—then the suffering of the hero has to be larger than life, too”.
This video is #2 of a series of videos focused on Heroes in this CHS Essentials Playlist. Take a minute to watch some of our other videos on the same playlist!
#1. Can a Hero Be Morally Defective?
#6. Beating the Odds
#7. Rāma
Gregory Nagy has been studying ancient Greek heroes for over four decades. On our website you can find selected books for free on the concept of the hero by Nagy and other scholars:
- Gregory Nagy, The Ancient Greek Hero in 24 Hours
- Gregory Nagy, The Best of the Achaeans: Concepts of the Hero in Archaic Greek Poetry
- Richard P. Martin, The Language of Heroes: Speech and Performance in the Iliad