Listen free for 30 days
Listen with offer
-
Facing Down the Furies
- Suicide, the Ancient Greeks, and Me
- Narrated by: Edith Hall
- Length: 7 hrs and 25 mins
Failed to add items
Add to basket failed.
Add to wishlist failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
£0.00 for first 30 days
Buy Now for £12.99
No valid payment method on file.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Summary
An award-winning classicist turns to Greek tragedies for the wisdom to understand the damage caused by suicide and help those who are contemplating suicide themselves
In Sophocles’ tragedy Oedipus the Tyrant, a messenger arrives to report that Jocasta, queen of Thebes, has killed herself. To prepare listeners for this terrible news, he announces, “The tragedies that hurt the most are those that sufferers have chosen for themselves.” Edith Hall, whose own life and psyche have been shaped by such loss—her mother’s grandfather, mother, and first cousin all took their own lives—traces the philosophical arguments on suicide, from Plato and Aristotle to David Hume and Albert Camus.
In this deeply personal story, Hall explores the psychological damage that suicide inflicts across generations, relating it to the ancient Greek idea of a family curse. She draws parallels between characters from Greek tragedy and her own relatives, including her great-grandfather, whose life and death bore similar motivations to Sophocles’ Ajax: both men were overwhelmed by shame and humiliation.
Hall, haunted by her own periodic suicidal urges, shows how plays by Sophocles and other Greek dramatists helped her work through the loss of her grandmother and namesake Edith and understand her relationship with her own mother. The wisdom and solace found in the ancient tragedies, she argues, can help one choose survival over painful adversity and offer comfort to those who are tragically bereaved.
Edith Hall is a professor in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University. She is the author of more than thirty books, including Aristotle’s Way: How Ancient Wisdom Can Change Your Life. She lives in Cambridgeshire, UK.
What listeners say about Facing Down the Furies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- C. F. Hankinson
- 13-05-24
It was moving, honest and interesting
I too have ancestors who probably did and some certainly have attempted, suicide all in my maternal line, three generations, mother granny and great granny. And I love the Greeks so it touched lots of places for me and am very grateful. I am also a fan of George Saintsbury who considered Thomas Lovell Beddoes, who poetised
death, the finest lyric poet.
I mercifully have never felt a suicidal impulse I love life too much in my quiet solitary dog loving way. But I am drawn to the subject and want to honour my female forbears.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!