The aspect of the Prometheus myth that tends to receive the least attention in casual reference to it is also, I think, the aspect that matters most. We remember Prometheus as the rebel, the martyr, the figure chained to the rock while the eagle comes each day to devour his
There is a scene near the end of the Iliad that I find myself returning to with some regularity, and that I think about more than almost any other passage in classical literature. Hector stands alone outside the walls of Troy. Achilles is approaching across the plain, and the Trojans
There is a particular species of American tragedy that we have not, to my knowledge, adequately named or understood. It is not the tragedy of the great man who falls from grace through hubris or moral failing: that variety we recognize easily enough, having inherited from the Greeks the vocabulary
There is a certain kind of observer, present in every age, who moves through the world not as a detached spectator but as a deeply invested participant; someone who watches, considers, and, when the moment seems to call for it, ventures a thought on the state of things. The French