"He was a god, such as men might be, if men were gods"
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Anderson’s line flatters and punctures in the same breath: “He was a god” arrives like hero-worship, then the qualifier snaps it back to earth. “Such as men might be” is the tell. This isn’t divinity as miracle or mystery; it’s divinity as a human scale turned up to its absolute limit. The sentence performs a kind of stagecraft, building a pedestal and then showing you the carpentry.
The subtext is democratic and slightly skeptical. Anderson is not granting his subject supernatural status; he’s describing the social function of greatness. A “god” here is what communities manufacture when they need a figure big enough to carry their hopes, their grief, their history. The final clause, “if men were gods,” is the quiet barb: men aren’t. So whatever we’re praising is still bounded by appetite, error, compromise, and mortality. The praise becomes tragic, because it’s inseparable from the impossibility of its own premise.
As a playwright, Anderson understands how audiences crave the myth of the exceptional man while also hungering for the crack in the mask. This line compresses that tension into a single loop of conditional logic. It hints at a culture that wants saints without surrendering to religion, leaders without monarchy, legends that still feel “real.” The effect is reverent, but not credulous: a god made of human material, admired precisely because he can’t actually be one.
The subtext is democratic and slightly skeptical. Anderson is not granting his subject supernatural status; he’s describing the social function of greatness. A “god” here is what communities manufacture when they need a figure big enough to carry their hopes, their grief, their history. The final clause, “if men were gods,” is the quiet barb: men aren’t. So whatever we’re praising is still bounded by appetite, error, compromise, and mortality. The praise becomes tragic, because it’s inseparable from the impossibility of its own premise.
As a playwright, Anderson understands how audiences crave the myth of the exceptional man while also hungering for the crack in the mask. This line compresses that tension into a single loop of conditional logic. It hints at a culture that wants saints without surrendering to religion, leaders without monarchy, legends that still feel “real.” The effect is reverent, but not credulous: a god made of human material, admired precisely because he can’t actually be one.
Quote Details
| Topic | Deep |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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