Anger

“In most of our scholarly literature about the classical world,” writes Columbia University’s William V. Harris in his Restraining Rage: The Ideology of Anger Control in Classical Antiquity , “political and religious change . . . seems to take place in a remarkably calm fashion.” Harris doubts that this is the case, and his book is in part an effort to recover the insight of Robert Burton, who wrote that “our histories” bring us “almost . . . no other subject, but what a company of hare-brains have done in their rage.” Harris asks why “anger, or excessive anger [was] so much the target of criticism in classical antiquity,” and why “controlling anger, or keeping it within limits, or eliminating it, [was] thought to be so important.” It certainly was important: What Harris calls “anger discourse” was not only a focus of ethical inquiry, but “permeates the language of many Greek and Roman authors, from Homer onwards” (think of Achilles’ rage, and the theme of furor so prominent in the Aeneid ). While the book largely concentrates on philosophical, medical, and literary treatments of rage in antiquity, throughout he attempts to show the social and political contexts and consequences of anger-management strategies, writing chapters on the role of anger control in the ancient polis and the need for rulers to restrain their wrath. In this clear and impressively researched book, he recovers what he considers a crucial dimension of classical history and culture, the tension between the belief that one can control anger and the notion that “strong emotions are irresistible external forces beyond our control.”