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Donna Tartt’s The Secret History

Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. 31 jan. 2011. The Secret History. Camilla was saying, ‘If the Greeks are sailing to Carthage, it should be accusative. Remember? Place whither?’ ‘Can’t be.’ This was Bunny. ‘It’s not place whither, it’s place to. I put my money on the ablative case.’

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Donna Tartt’s The Secret History

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  1. Donna Tartt’s The Secret History 31 jan. 2011

  2. The Secret History Camilla was saying, ‘If the Greeks are sailing to Carthage, it should be accusative. Remember? Place whither?’ ‘Can’t be.’ This was Bunny. ‘It’s not place whither, it’s place to. I put my money on the ablative case.’ ‘Wait,’ said Charles, ‘look at this. They’re not just sailing to Carthage, they’re sailing to attack it. We need a dative.’ ‘Are you sure?’ ‘Absolutely. Epi to Karchidona.’ ‘I don’t see how,’ said Bunny. ‘Ablative’s the ticket. The hard ones are always ablative.’ ‘Bunny,’ said Charles, ‘you’re mixed up. The ablative is in Latin.’ (p. 21-22)

  3. The Secret History • summary and reception of the novel • classical studies in Europe and America • Dionysiac / Bacchic ritual • what is it about?

  4. The Secret History • genre: • crime novel? • campus novel? • novel of ideas?

  5. The Secret History • Hampden college, Vermont • Julian Morrow • the Lyceum • select students • fantasy figure • Richard Papen • narrator

  6. The Secret History ‘It was a small building on the edge of the campus, old and covered with ivy in such a manner as to be almost indistinguishable from its landscape.’ (p. 15) ‘Segregation. Self. Self-concept.’ (p. 22)

  7. The Secret History ‘You want to know what Classics are?’ said a drunk Dean of Admissions to me at a faculty party a couple of years ago. ‘I’ll tell you what Classics are. Wars and homos.’ A sententious and vulgar statement, certainly, but… it also contains a tiny splinter of truth. (p.61)

  8. Classical Studies in Europe • 1453-1755: antiquarianism • preservation and restoration • the University • 1755-ca.1850: classicism • antiquity as an ideal / example • the German Gymnasium

  9. America: - classicism: colleges modelled on the Gymnasium Europe: - romanticism: antiquity as a counter-example ca. 1850 ‘From the Romans, we learn how things got the way they are; from the Greeks, we learn how things might have been.’ - Fr. Nietzsche -

  10. Classical Studies 1951 • E.R. Dodds (Regius prof. of Greek at Oxford) • Sather Lectures (University of California, Berkeley) • The Greeks & the Irrational • Nazi Germany • magic, superstition • mass psychosis

  11. The Secret History ‘The Greeks were different... Do you remember what we were speaking of earlier, of how bloody, terrible things are sometimes the most beautiful? It’s a very Greek idea, and a very profound one. Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control com-pletely?’ (p. 46)

  12. The Secret History (p. 191-200) ‘Do you remember last fall, in Julian’s class, when we studied what Plato calls telestic madness? Bak-cheia? Dionysiac frenzy?… Well, we decided to have one.’ ‘It was possible, with a great deal of work, to figure out some of the sacred rituals – the hymns, the sacred objects, what to wear and do and say.’

  13. The Secret History (p. 191-200) ‘To receive the god, one has to be in a state of euphemia, cultic purity…’

  14. Dionysiac / Bacchic ritual • seclusion • men / women • oreibasía • abstention • food, sex • observance • sacrifice ‘It’s a primitive place.’ (p. 200)

  15. L. Alma Tadema, The Women of Amphissa

  16. The Secret History (p. 191-200) ‘You saw Dionysus, I suppose?’ I had not meant this at all seriously, and I was startled when he nodded as casually as if I’d asked him if he’d done his homework.

  17. The Secret History (p. 191-200) ‘But these are fundamentally sex rituals, aren’t they?’ ‘Of course. There was a certain carnal element to the proceedings…’

  18. Rome, 186 v.Chr. “At first,” she said, “those rites were performed by women: no man used to be admitted. From the time that the rituals were made common, and men were intermixed with women, and the licentious freedom of the night was added, there was nothing wicked, nothing obscene that had not been practiced among them. There were more frequent pollutions of men with each other than with women.”

  19. Rome, 186 v.Chr. ‘No Bacchanalian rites should be celebrated in Rome or in Italy. In case any person should believe some such kind of worship necessary, and he could notomit it, he should put this to the city praetor, and the praetor should lay the business before the senate. If permission were granted by the senate, then he might perform those rites, provided that no more than five persons should be present at the sacrifice, and that they should have no common stock of money, nor any president of the ceremonies, nor priest.’ (Senatus consultum de Bacchanalibus)

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