Research Centre for Greek and Latin Literature, Academy of Athens

Nature and Natural Imagery in ancient Greek, Latin, Chinese and Japanese Literature: Comparisons and Contrasts

Online Lecture Series

Alexander Beecroft (University of South Carolina), Nature and Culture in Greek and Chinese Imagery.

Thursday 15 May 2025, 09.00 New York  / 14.00 London  / 16.00 Athens  / 21.00 Beijing

Abstract

Fifty years ago, James Redfield’s classic Nature and Culture in the Iliad: The Tragedy of Hector (Duke University Press, 1975) offered a provocative anthropological perspective on the Iliad. Redfield argued that both Achilles and Hector were caught between culture and nature, between the realms of choice and constraint, and that their very different solutions to their dilemmas drive the narrative. Importantly, Redfield underscored that what constitutes nature, and what culture, is itself culturally dependent: what is understood as an inescapable constraint to one community may be seen as an act of will by another.

What happens if we apply Redfield’s paradigm to a radically different cultural context? I take the figure of Qu Yuan, as represented in the Li Sao and elsewhere, as a traditional Chinese case of the man caught between nature and culture, a status sacralized by his shamanic role. Through a reading of the Li Sao and of the Qu Yuan legend, I explore the contrasting distinctions between nature and culture (understood on Redfield’s terms) in the early cultures of Greece and China.

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