Why Doesn’t Ancient Fiction Talk About Feelings? (2017)

I am curious to know if Ferdowsi ever talks about feelings in Shahnameh [0]. I cannot remember any such instances, but I have only ever read small parts of it.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahnameh

> You can't just have your characters announce how they feel! That makes me feel angry!

The article is not very consistent, because it also states that «in medieval or classical texts, “people are constantly planning, remembering, loving, fearing, but they somehow manage to do this without the author drawing attention to these mental states.” This changed dramatically between 1500 and 1700».

The classical Greek tragedies certainly did draw attention to the mental state of their characters. I remember a long monologue of Euripides' Andromache that I would sum up as "This life is too hard. Why did I have a son? I shouldn't have, as my care for him doubles my suffering. But I should not lament, I should act and die for my son."

Ancient Greek tragedy has no more "predictable reactions" than a modern work of fiction would have -- it goes into depth about the ambivalence of a character's feelings for example.

Besides the article also says that people in ancient literature didn't openly talk or display their emotions, except through action (tearing their hair, etc). That's patently wrong even for the Iliad, and doubly so for Odyssey.

The article also bizarrely seems to restrict to literature after the fall of Rome and up to the 15th century or so, as if that constitutes the whole of being "ancient"...

Also, have the author read millennia old Greek, Chinese, etc poetry? They'll find all kinds of inner monologues and discussions of feelings.

  My heart is no mere mirror
  That cannot comprehend.
  Brothers I have, but may not
  On brothers e’en depend.
  Tush! when I go complaining
  ’Tis only to offend.
  No stone this heart of mine is,
  That may be turned and rolled;
  No mat this heart of mine is,
  To fold or to unfold.
  Steadfast and strict my life is;
  Nought ’gainst it can be told.
  Yet here I sit in sorrow,
  Scorned by a rabble crew.
  My troubles have been many,
  My insults not a few.
  Calmly I think—then, starting,
  I beat my breast anew.
  O moon, why now the brighter?*
  O sun, why now dost wane?
  My heart wears grief as garments
  Inured to soil and stain.
  Calmly I think—then, starting,
  Would fly—but all in vain.

Although I think the greek tragedies have a higher level of psychoanalytical sophistication that would only be matched in the 19th century.

Huh? There's lots of this in Oddysey. Even more so in ancient tragedy, and whole lots in lyrical poetry, Sappho etc.

Jaynes’ theory is interesting to me because it reminds me of disassociative disorders.

There are evolutionary changes in humans that are known to us. For instance, people of European descent can still digest milk into adulthood; the father you get from Europe, the greater that lactose intolerance grows. So it could also be for bicameralism.

I too, am skeptical about how this came across the world, but he does mention in passing that some of the Pre-Columbian cultures of North America could have still been bicameral as late as the early 1500s. It's really an interesting read.

[1] I found a copy in a used book store and the price was right.

That seems really far fetched.

This is exactly how I feel when I visit certain extremely religious relatives. They have a 'spiritual' explanation for almost every last tiny detail of their ongoing daily experience. Sometimes I think a few of the more fringe groups of this sort are actively enabling unmedicated schizophrenics.