From Achilles to Anzac: Heroism in the Dardanelles from Antiquity to the Great War (original) (raw)

Abstract

The Australian representation of the Gallipoli Campaign in the Great War is laced with allusions to antiquity and the Classical world. The men in the trenches were aware that they were located across the Dardanelles from Troy and references to the landscapes’ past permeated their writings. Allusions to antiquity also pervaded art, literature and newspapers throughout the war and afterwards. This paper will look at the reasons why the epic and the heroic were used when representing the Anzac involvement at Gallipoli. It will also examine the construction of an Anzac myth at Gallipoli which forged a link between the Classical past and the Australian present and future. This will demonstrate that the Classics were used as an ‘opiate’ to dull the pain that the war caused the Australian nation. It will also examine the Anzac myth’s construction as a convenient link to Western civilization, placing Australia within a European continuum while simultaneously establishing themselves as an in...

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