Homer's psyche
The origins of the 'Western mind' in ancient Greek poetry and mythology
This is Who made our minds? my Thursday essay probing the greatest, cruellest and most beautiful minds of the past 5,000 years, inspired by my book, The Soul: A History of the Human Mind (Penguin 2024). Coming up: The (French) Revolutionary Conscience, the Totalitarian Mind and Da Vinci’s eye
FOR 1000 YEARS, the ancient Greeks believed the virgin Earth (Gaia) appeared out of Chaos and gave birth to Uranus (the Sky), events described in Hesiod’s poem about the creation of the world, Theogony.
Uranus then impregnated his mother Gaia, producing the twelve Titans, gigantic creatures given to interbreeding, castrating, clobbering or devouring one another and their children when the mood took them.
The Greek goddess of love, Aphrodite - or Venus, in the Roman pantheon - did not rise beatifically out of a clam shell, as depicted in Sandro Botticelli’s gorgeous painting. She grew out of the co…