Part A
This may be a somewhat crude exercise, but hey <shrug>.......: Which citations of which figures throughout history might
A) help convince alien visitors from another planet that our species is well worth deeper study, and might
B) indicate to such aliens just what it is that makes humanity "tick"?
I want to cover a variety of different cultures. I don't want my choices to be too "Anglocentric", and I also don't want them to be too heavily Western. I don't want them to seem too "C.E.-centric" either, since B.C.E. encompasses a huge stretch of history. As much coverage, then, of language, of culture, of ethnicity, and of era is the goal.
Ideally, concentrating on such figures might also help foster greater understanding, in turn, of further great historic developments within the various cultures/civilizations as a whole that are involved in the list -- one studies two or three seminal figures, and further facts and reflections on a given culture then get revealed, like peeling back the layers of an onion. The great figures are merely gateways or mnemonics to the sweep of history in its staggering entirety.
I (arbitrarily?) want to limit myself to under fifty historical figures, with the assumption that the final cut should be manageable enough for study by one individual over the course of a couple of years rather than decades.
Might members here have any thoughts as to humanity's greatest and most important contributors? Who might they feel are the human beings who've made the most direct contributions to the kind of species we are today, and why? Just as importantly, can one say (as I, frankly, would) that humanity is directly impacted and shaped and changed by the achievements of certain extremely gifted individuals?
This post is intended to stimulate either further historical nominees from the rest of our membership here, or general discussion on just what it is that people here feel makes any great contributor to the human comedy especially important, or both. I'd be happy to read your reasons for any nominees of your own, as well as any of your overall reasoning, pro or con, on just what it is that can make any historical figure especially significant in general, plus thoughts on the proposition that humanity itself can be significantly altered by the achievements of single individuals. I'd also be happy to read any thoughts here on why any of my own nominees may seem relatively insignificant in light of the importance of other people cited here.
My nominees are arranged alphabetically by achievement: i.e., Artists first, followed by Bards, then Founders, then Scientists, and so on.
Artists (9):
c.525 - 456 b.c.e.: Aeschylus
This ancient Greek dramatic poet is the earliest extant dramatist and the first surviving writer known to have employed the device of two different characters speaking to each other. Many scholars and critics see Aeschylus's dramatic trilogy, the Oresteia, as the greatest dramatic work ever conceived. Aeschylus himself was arguably the most complete man of the theater ever: Not just a writer and a dramatic poet, he was also an acclaimed actor, a designer of elaborate costumes, the originator (acc. to some sources) of the "skene" (which is the forerunner of the backdrop for most traditional stage productions ever since), and an inspired composer whose music (mostly lost) for his plays was as praised by some as his poetry.
c.495 - c.405 b.c.e.: Sophocles
And if Aeschylus is on such a list, then, since many modern-day and ancient critics (like Aristotle) view Sophocles as having brought the genre that Aeschylus "mainstreamed" to an even higher peak than Aeschylus did, Sophocles too ought to claim membership in such company, especially when one views the vividness and inspired irony in a cycle like Sophocles's Oedipus trilogy.
978 - 1026: Lady Murasaki Shikibu
The first novelist, she wrote the enormously popular Tale of Genji, which some scholars view as having practically shaped Japanese culture from then on. And the novel, as a form, is now ubiquitous.
1265 - 1321: Dante Alighieri
For much of Europe, Dante's Divine Comedy impacted on its culture's conception of the cosmos almost as much as Scripture. Moreover, the full sweep of this poem seems to take in every stratum of social class there is. A perfect mirror of human life in its time, Dante's character types seem universal.
1373 - c.1430: Seami
One great stage tradition that proved as varied in its effect as Greek theater was the Japanese Noh play. Like Greek theater, the Noh play was also an elaborate amalgam of poetry, drama, dance and song. For many, its leading genius is Seami, whose vivid vignettes of journeying and suffering establish a standard never surpassed in deftness and quiet beauty.
1564 - 1616: William Shak[e]speare
The leading playwright of the Globe theater in early 17th-century London, Shak[e]speare, like Dante, seemed gifted with the knack for depicting every human condition there is. Moreover, his knack for an apt turn of phrase has rendered his poetry part of the lingua franca for all of Anglo culture. His gift at evoking a character's feelings through careful calibration of casual speech rhythms in the midst of the poetry, above and beyond what the character may explicitly be saying, makes his texts some of the most eminently actable dramas ever. In fact, his dizzying control of three-dimensional characterization has captured the imagination of artists in many non-Anglo cultures as well.
1567 - 1643: Claudio Monteverdi
Opera is an idealization of the kind of amalgam experienced in ancient Greek drama. Even though the relative dominance of music in this form has often kept leading dramatic poets at bay, examples of an ideal synthesis of poetry and music do exist in this form, and some literary geniuses, like Lorenzo da Ponte, have shone in opera, when collaborating with an inspired composer who also has a genuine feeeling for narrative and drama. Monteverdi was not the very first opera composer, but he was of the same generation as its earliest pioneers, and his genius helped in turning opera into the vibrant, stageworthy form that grew so rapidly in popularity during the 17th century.
1813 - 1883: Richard Wagner
The most well-rounded talent in opera ever(?): emotionally evocative music that sometimes has the same gnomic effectiveness in establishing character and feeling that Shak[e]speare's ostensibly casual speech rhythms have, a gift at conveying the "visual" through musical sound alone, a reasonably accomplished if not always inspired writer of dramatic verse, possibly as thoroughgoing a conceptualizer of "stage space" as Aeschylus in his design for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus and its easily viewable stage from all angles, together with being (by contemporary accounts) an apparently effective performing interpreter as conductor of a staggering range of music beyond his own. His most influential accomplshment may be his huge Ring cycle: four operas that convey the full sweep, albeit tweaked and honed to essentials, of the Norse Eddas. Some believe that cinema might never have taken the exact shape it did absent Wagner. No question that certain aspects of what he said and did disturb many, but it is as an artist that he earns a place in this survey.
1889 - 1977: Charles Chaplin
The first internationally celebrated film genius: actor, director, composer -- sometimes a comedian;-). One cliche paraphrase readily applies here: Internationally speaking, Chaplin made the cinema, and the cinema made Chaplin. His image on the screen became iconic, and it's possible that no human being before him had been so universally familiar to so much of humanity within his own lifetime. His films themselves, while sometimes wildly funny, also seek to convey the complexity of life at the same time. Sometimes they achieve this successfully, sometimes not. But the peaks in Chaplin's output convey the love of humanity that is common to the greatest drama geniuses.
Bards (6):
c.800 b.c.e.: Hesiod
c.800 b.c.e.: Homer
Essentially, I've decided that both these two bards are of equal stature in terms of their impact. But it took me a while getting there.
On the one hand, compared to Hesiod, Homer does not pack the same immediate civic "punch". That is, it's Hesiod who presents the classic "picture" of the early cosmos as conceived in ancient Greek tradition. Also, in addition to the centrality of his Theogony, Hesiod directly influences the Constitution of Orchomenus, whose designers view him as "hearth-founder". Homer has nothing of this kind attached to his name.
On the other hand, there is no question that Homer's Iliad and Odyssey helped shape in his people's collective mind just what it meant to be a "noble Greek". For that, Homer deserves inclusion. And after all, it was Homer whose epics were most often rifled by the Greek dramatic poets centuries later. Some scholars even talk of the Homeric cultures, meaning the cultures typical of both ancient Greece and even ancient Rome who adopted the Homeric narratives as the virtual landscape for their lives.
c.475 - c.425 b.c.e.: Vyasa
Probably the hugest epic ever written, the Mahabharata mirrors every facet of ancient Indian culture possibly more exhaustively than Dante's Divine Comedy mirrors Renaissance Europe. The Mahabharata is generally credited to Vyasa, although that may be an honorific rather than the poet's proper name. Beyond that, unlike Dante, Vyasa has not simply fashioned a narrative that is replete with action and character. In the midst of the Mahabharata is placed the Bhagavad-Gita, a Hindu text whose ethical and instructional impact became central to the ancient Indian's understanding of oneself and of one's place in the cosmos. Also, unlike Dante's consciously fictitious trilogy, Vyasa's epic takes its subject matter partly from history, and scholars discuss endlessly how much of Mahabharata is history and how much is imagination. (The same is true of Homer.)
c.650 - c.725: Hiyeda no Are
Writer of the Kojiki, Japan's foundational epic text of Shinto Buddhism, Hiyeda was credited with being an amazingly retentive repository of all of ancient Japan's lore up to that time. Possibly a woman (although this is not altogether clear), Hiyeda produced the Kojiki by royal command as a way of consolidating Japanese traditions for centuries to come. It worked. An interesting sidelight on the history of Japanese civilization: Women, especially at court, played a major cultural role. It may not be coincidence that possibly the two most foundational literary landmarks in Japan, the Kojiki and the Tale of Genji, both come from a woman's hand.
1179 - 1241: Snorri Sturluson
c.1525 - c.1575: Cristobal Velasco
These two can be taken together, since they both play a similar role: that of poetic restorer of a past culture rather than an inspirer of a present or future one. Sterluson preserved the Norse Eddas and Velasco the Mayan Popol Vuh. Both these restorations helped pave the way for significant understanding from future generations. The Norse traditions might not have survived the way thay have had it not been for Sterluson's preserving these epic texts, and countless everyday details like the days of the week, for instance, might well have lost much meaning -- never mind the path opened for Wagner's Ring cycle.
The Mayan Popol Vuh is the chief epic of the Mayan people, the most advanced pre-Colombian civilization in the "New World". The sophistication of the ancient Mayans is astonishing, and the sweep of this national epic matches the artistic bravery of Homer and Vyasa.
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