History of gratitude

A history of gratitude remains to be written. That it would be a worthwhile project, providing an important angle of vision into important developments in Western civilization, can be illustrated by a contrast of Oedipus and King Lear. As Catherine Dunn explains in her 1946 dissertation on ingratitude in Renaissance ethical thought (she’s summarizing an earlier article by Joseph Hewitt), “among the ancient Greeks the parental dignity was held in high esteem, but an offense against it was classed not under ingratitude, but under another category. What [Hewitt] seems to mean is that the relationship between parent and child was regarded less from the point of view of sentiment and more from the viewpoint of reciprocal duty and mutual advantage. A child’s offense was not primarily a personal injury, a lack of grateful affection, but it was an infringement upon the sacred paternal prerogatives and a blow at the structure of the family. The offense was thus a sin against the god who sponsors the paternal authority.” Dunn notes that sixteenth century writers were “amazingly severe” in their condemnation of ingratitude.

The father is pictured in the Greek play as an authority figure, possessing the right to command; in Lear, the father is pictured as a gift-giver, particularly perhaps a giver of life. Among other things, this contrast appears to highlight a fundamental theological shift, from the pagan view of self-centered authoritarian gods to the Christian God of grace and gifts. That is no doubt too bald a contrast, but there is something quite profound at work here.