[Authors and titles are listed at the end of the review]
Misanthropy is back in vogue, at least in scholarship. Philosophers and psychologists in particular have shown a keen interest in the topic, at times displaying greater sympathy for the misanthrope than earlier generations of scholars. In a recent contribution to the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Raja Halwani asks whether misanthropes can be virtuous; his answer is that they can.[1] Toby Svoboda, for his part, has offered A Philosophical Defense of Misanthropy.[2] In 2022, the volume Being Alone in Antiquity: Greco-Roman Ideas and Experiences of Misanthropy, Isolation and Solitude, edited by Rafał Matuszewski, further accentuated the growing scholarly interest in the subject.[3]
The book under review aims to offer the first diachronic and systematic exploration of misanthropy. Its editors, Yasmin Temelli and Manuel Baumbach, professors of Romance languages and Greek literature respectively, have assembled sixteen contributions ranging from Homer’s misanthrope Polyphemus to an AI-generated image of a misanthropic man. As the editors rightly emphasize in their brief preface, the misanthrope is, by definition, dependent on other human beings. The misanthrope needs the other, if only to demonstrate that he or she has withdrawn from the world. This paradox explains the book’s title: the misanthrope is – nolens volens – always in dialogue.
It comes as no surprise that the COVID-19 pandemic heightened scholarly interest in themes such as isolation, remoteness, and misanthropy. Temelli and Baumbach explain that the project was inspired by the experience of social distancing during the pandemic. Yet the subject itself is far from new, at least with regard to the ancient world. More than 120 years ago, Franz Bertram devoted his doctoral dissertation at the University of Heidelberg to the Entwicklungsgeschichte of the misanthrope in Greco-Roman literature. In his introduction, Bertram aptly remarks that (the legendary) Timon of Athens would no doubt have been astonished to learn that, over the centuries, so many people would take an interest in him, the archetypal misanthrope. It could scarcely have been his intention.[4]
Temelli and Baumbach’s edited volume emerged from a conference held at the University of Siegen, Germany, in 2023. The collection spans an impressive chronological and geographical range, but my review will focus on the chapters devoted to Greek and Roman antiquity. In the opening chapter, Temelli and Baumbach map the semantic range of the figure of the misanthrope. In Plato’s dialogues the misanthrope is someone incapable of participating in social life, whether because of defective upbringing (Plato, Leges 791d) or disappointment with humanity (Phaedo 89d–e). In the orators (Isocrates, Demosthenes), misanthropy becomes a political term of abuse employed to discredit one’s opponents. In Old Comedy (Phrynichus, fifth century BCE), the figure serves to expose and negotiate social and political grievances. Already in Phrynichus’ Monotropos (The Recluse), Timon of Athens appears as the exemplary misanthrope (frs. 19–20 PCG). Temelli and Baumbach distinguish seven literary types of the misanthrope (not confined to antiquity): the classical misanthrope (disillusioned with humanity and withdrawn from society); the unsociable or cantankerous type (represented by Knemon in Menander’s Dyskolos); the didactic misanthrope (e.g. the Cynic philosopher Diogenes); the eremitic type (Anthony in Gustave Flaubert’s La tentation de saint Antoine [1874]); the melancholic misanthrope (already exemplified by Homer’s Bellerophon, “who shunned the paths of men,” Il. 6.202: πάτον ἀνθρώπων ἀλεείνων); the economic misanthrope (illustrated by figures from popular culture such as Disney’s Scrooge McDuck); and, finally, the occasional misanthrope, exemplified by the figure in Goethe’s short poem “Der Misanthrop [1768],” who can lose his philanthropy from one moment to the next.
Manuel Baumbach then turns to what he regards as the protomisanthrope of European literature: Polyphemus in Homer’s Odyssey. Since the Cyclopes do not care for one another (Od. 9.115), they stand in opposition not only to the Greek civilization represented by Odysseus and his companions but also to the Phaeacians. Although the latter likewise inhabit an isolated region, Scheria (Od. 6.4–10; 205), they do not lapse into misanthropy like the “misocyclopic Polyphemus” (pp. 37–38). As Baumbach emphasizes, however, Polyphemus is fundamentally peaceful by nature. He is indeed the personification of a zoon apolitikon, yet at the same time the prototype of the peaceful misanthrope. In the twelfth century, Eustathius associated him with the Christian anchorites of his own age. According to Baumbach, the fact that Homer’s Polyphemus nevertheless becomes a man-eating monster has less to do with the Cyclops himself than with Odysseus, who violated Polyphemus’ self-sufficient existence. The ensuing violence thus represents, for Baumbach, the failure of the universalist claims of Greek civilization (p. 46).
Polyphemus also occupies center stage in the following chapter by Maurice Parussel on Euripides’ satyr play Cyclops. In Euripides, Polyphemus becomes an adversary fully equal to Odysseus. With all due respect to the Cyclopes, one could say that they meet eye to eye. Euripides humanizes Homer’s Polyphemus. According to Parussel, this humanization includes, and indeed depends upon, his misanthropy, which cannot simply be reduced to hatred of human beings. Rather, Polyphemus’ misanthropy constitutes a defining feature of his worldview (p. 65).
Timon of Athens – that misanthrope who, according to Callimachus (Epigr. 4), even shunned Hades because there are more people there than on earth (an argument difficult to refute), and who ultimately dies because he refuses to consult a physician (Neanthes of Cyzikus, BNJ 84 F 35) – is the focus of Peter von Möllendorff’s chapter, focusing on Lucian’s version. Here Timon appears as what a number of ancient authors, including Cicero (Tusc. 4.25) and Philo of Alexandria (Spec. Leg. 2.16–17), suspected the misanthrope to be: a person suffering from a psychological disorder. According to von Möllendorff, the aggressiveness, prodigality, and, not least, the logorrhea of Lucian’s Timon point to a manic syndrome.[5]
Stefan Alkier’s contribution turns to what he calls the “misanthropic misunderstandings” of biblical texts. The biblical flood narrative, he argues, should not be read as the story of God as a “mega-misanthrope,” since God ultimately does not withdraw from humanity (p. 89). Alkier denies the possibility of genuine misanthropy within biblical theology. Surprisingly, the chapter does not discuss Haman’s accusation of misanthropy against the Jews in the Book of Esther (Esth. 3:8). More valuable are Alkier’s general observations on the literary function of the misanthrope. Precisely because the misanthrope occupies a position of detachment, he can be made to voice whatever one wishes to criticize (p. 84).
A classic example of this is Alceste in Molière’s Le Misanthrope, alongside Timon of Athens perhaps the most famous misanthrope in world literature. From the beginning he denounces “this shameful commerce of pretended friendship” (Act I, scene I: “Ce commerce honteux de semblants d’amitié”). As Christian Grünnagel rightly argues in his chapter on Molière (and Houellebecq), Alceste’s misanthropy does not amount to a rejection of humanity as such but is, like that of Menander’s Knemon, above all a critique of society (p. 100). As Auguste Widal had already observed in 1895 in his study of the misanthrope as a motif in ancient and modern literature (discussed here by Jutta Weiser, pp. 130–31), misanthropy is, to a certain extent, the logical – and maybe even honorable – response to the shortcomings of human beings.[6] As Aristotle famously remarks, anyone who can live without other human beings is either a beast or a god (Politics 1253a26–28: ἢ θηρίον ἢ θεός). Living together with others may well be part of the conditio humana. Yet, as Ina Kühne in her chapter on the Beauty and the Beast motif states, one may also make a case for the value of a peaceful withdrawal (p. 208).
Temelli and Baumbach have succeeded in “approaching” the withdrawn figure of the misanthrope, as the book’s subtitle aptly promises. Their volume demonstrates the remarkable diversity of the motif of misanthropy, from Homer to artificial intelligence. Exhaustiveness cannot have been the ambition. Nevertheless, one omission is striking: the recurring accusation of misanthropy directed against the Jews in ancient literature is not discussed at all.[7] The editors briefly allude to the topic in their introduction, mentioning Posidonius and Diodorus and noting, rather enigmatically, that misanthropy is discussed “in connection with certain religious laws and customs” (p. 15), without specifying what these laws and customs are. Moreover, the absence of indices limits the volume’s usefulness as a reference work. Biographical notes on the contributors, who represent a wide range of academic disciplines, would likewise have been a welcome – and philanthropic – service to the reader.
These minor shortcomings, however, do little to diminish the overall achievement of the volume. Misanthrop im Dialog is a rich and stimulating contribution to a subject that continues to fascinate.
Authors and titles
- Yasmin Temelli and Manuel Baumbach: Skalierungen des zóon apolitikón. Konzeptuelle Überlegungen zur Figur des Misanthropen
- Manuel Baumbach: Ein menschenfressender Der Kyklop Polyphem als Protomisanthrop in Homers Odyssee
- Maurice Parussel: Der dionysische Polyphem in Euripides’ Satyrspiel Kyklops. Vom homerischen Eremiten zum Menschenhasser
- Peter Möllendorff: μελαγχολᾶν οὐ μετρίως – Spielarten der Melancholie in Lukians Timon oder Der Misanthrop
- Stefan Alkier: „… denn das Dichten und Trachten des menschlichen Herzens ist böse von Jugend auf“ (1. Mose 8,21b) – misanthropische Missverständnisse biblischer Texte
- Christian Grünnagel: Misanthropen und die Gesellschaft – Molière und Houellebecq im Dialog
- Jutta Weiser: Der Menschenfeind als Menschenprüfer. Moralistik und Misanthropie bei Chamfort, Nietzsche und Houellebecq
- Sieglinde Borvitz: Misanthropie im Werk Giacomo Leopardis
- Guido Rings: Ansätze zur Überwindung misanthropischer Tendenzen in Jeunets Amélie
- Ina Kühne: Misanthropie und das Tierhaft-Monströse in La Belle et la Bête (2014) von Christophe Gans
- Kristine Vanden Berghe: Perspectives nietzschéennes dans le roman “sicaresque”. L’exemple de Gustavo Álvarez Gardeazábal
- Emiliano Garcilazo: Misanthropie und Tod in El último lector (2004) von David Toscana
- Yasmin Temelli: Der Precamisanthrop und Santiago Lorenzos Los asquerosos
- Hans Bouchard: Der Troll als Misanthrop in Webkultur und Politik
Judith Visser: Metaphorologische Überlegungen zur misantropía
Notes
[1] Raja Halwani, “Virtuous Misanthropes.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association 11 (2025): 78-96.
[2] Toby Svoboda, A Philosophical Defense of Misanthropy (New York, Routledge, 2022).
[3] Rafał Matuszewski, ed., Being Alone in Antiquity: Greco-Roman Ideas and Experiences of Misanthropy, Isolation and Solitude (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2022).
[4] Franz Bertram, Die Timonlegende: Eine Entwicklungsgeschichte des Misanthropentypus in der antiken Literatur (Greifswald: Julius Abel, 1906, Diss. Univ. Heidelberg), 1.
[5] The fact that in the Imperial period and Late Antiquity misanthropy increasingly came to be perceived as a mental disorder – a pathological condition rather than merely an eccentricity – has recently been demonstrated by Nadine Metzger. Nadine Metzger, “Pathologische Menschenflucht. Melancholische misanthropia in der kaiserzeitlichen und frühbyzantinischen Medizin,“ in Being Alone in Antiquity. Greco-Roman Ideas and Experiences of Misanthropy, Isolation and Solitude, ed. Rafał Matuszewski (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022), 435–458.
[6] Auguste Widal, Des divers caractères du misanthrope chez les écrivains anciens et modernes (Paris: A. Durand, 1851).
[7] Cf. Katell Berthelot, Philanthrôpia Judaica. Le débat autour de la “misanthropie” des lois juives dans l’Antiquité (Leiden: Brill, 2003); René Bloch, “Misanthropia,” Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum 24: 828–45.