What do I ask myself/ teach my child to ask herself when looking for translations/adaptations of historical/epic works for her?
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Excellent question. I don't feel qualified to answer, but I'm a chagrined by the lack of answers so far. I'm going to take a pass on your first question (I think @Coelacanth has a good start in the comments).
In college our first classroom discussion of Plato's dialogues, started when the professor made us stop reading after the first page and challenged us to spot the glaringly obvious cultural assumption that we did not share. We probably spent 15 minutes groping around and finally had to admit defeat. The professor pointed out that someone asks a question of a slave - something that would never happen in our lives. (one hopes). Seems trivial, but it changed the way I read historical texts.
For the second question, I think the most interesting questions are: - How did the protagonist's solution to the problem differ from the one you would have chosen? - Why did the protagonist select that strategy over the one you recommend? - What assumptions do you make that the protagonist did not? - What assumptions did the protagonist make that you think are flawed? (e.g Gilgamesh can set aside his responsibilities of government to wander around for a few weeks). - What cultural artifacts & institutions are portrayed that are alien today? (e.g. slavery, temple prostitution, the importance of funerals, etc.) - What cultural institutions are present, but are very different today? (e.g. government, marriage, economy, treatment of minorities and strangers, friendship, clan, etc.) - What function do those artifacts/institutions fulfill in the society? - What analogous artifacts/institutions do we use today to fulfill those functions? - What images/adjectives/attributes are used to convey cultural assumptions? (Why is Enkidu hairy? What does that say about hygiene? What does his diet say about the culture? What does it mean that Enkidu is "seduced into civilization"?
At some level I admit I'm asking how my culture is different from the one portrayed; I'm trying to decompose culture into a set of interrelating components and study how they fit together for the inhabitants.
The other concept I might introduce is emic and etic.
- From our point of view, what is the point where you want to reach into the epic and slap the character upside the head and say, "YOU IDIOT!"
- Operating entirely within the context of the epic, making the same assumptions as the inhabitants of the culture in question, what did the protagonist do that was clever, and what did the protagonist do that made things worse?
Those questions can be trivialized. But the practice of fitting myself inside someone elses cultural limitations and then examining my own cultural limitations from an external view point is, I think, generally useful.
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