/lit/ - Literature

Well first you start with the pre-socratics
Take a wild guess at what comes after that

>he didn't start with the Greeks

CONGRATULATIONS, YOU'RE NOW RETARDED FOREVER!

>>11524913
I never started so I'm good

>>11524907
ya but who's pre-socrates

>>11524901
Well the Greeks took everything they knew from schooling in Egypt. So go do that math.

>>11524940
You made the assertion, you provide the evidence.

>>11524901
>Should I seriously start with greek writers/philosophers first?
Yes. Read the Loeb edition of Sextus Empiricus' Against Pyrrhonism, it has a summary of the presocratics and is basically where modern philosophy started. Then read Plato's big four dialogues, the Trial of Socrates. If you're still undaunted, read Plato's Republic. It was massively influential in shaping the traditional classes and politics of the west.

While you're busy with all that read Homer, and Hesiod's Theogony, Anacreon, and Sophocles. Theogony will give you an idea of the gods, and Homer will paint a portrait of the people and their duty. Anacreon is their soul and Sophocles their nightmare.

Finish the Greeks with Aristotle. The Organon should suffice. It'll seem really obvious and redundant, but read it carefully anyway. He's teaching you the vocabulary and habits of thinking like a philosopher.

>>11524901
It's /lit/'s version of watch boku no pico/ install gentoo

>>11524915
me

Iliad, Odyssey, Aristotle, Plato.

Start here

>>11524901
People take it too far when they insist you read half a dozen book of background history and mythology before even touching a primary source, but reading at least some of the greeks gives extremely important context for literally all the philosophy that came after.

>>11525416
>>11525387
These anons have the right idea. Most importantly, start with the Apology and read the Republic

>>11524901

Literally just read any tragedy from any of the big three and you will be far more advanced intellectually then most people will ever come close to being. I recommend Aias

>>11524901
It's both a meme and a sincere recommendation. I know some people will just say it as a meme and haha how funny epic my dudes, but it's genuinely good advice because much of the foundations of storytelling and western civilisation starts with the Greeks. They were master playwrights, philosophers, orators, songwriters, performers and artists and it shows with how their thousands years old work still resonates today (Aristophanes can be seen in Monty Python to The Thick of It/Veep; The Odyssey is fucking everywhere if the story follows the three act structure; Greek philosophy is credited as the foundation of education and academia; etc).

However, the downside is that once you start with the Greeks, you're never truly finished. There's such a wealth of work from the ancient Greeks that once you've read ten of their essential works, you'll find fifty more. People literally dedicate their lives to studying and analysing these texts because they're considered so influential by the fucking truckload.

Would recommend The Odyssey and The Iliad (although The Iliad turns a lot of people off early on because of the ship catalogue but it's only a few pages long, but maybe save it for when you've read a little more); Aeschylus' Prometheus Bound and The Oresteia; Aristophanes' Lysistrata (also The Birds is funny too); Plato's Symposium (it's an accessible philosophy text where the scenario of a dinner party is set up and multiple writers and philosophers debate the importance of love, exploring homosexuality, sex, biology and literal drama between Socrates wanting to go balls deep in Agathon, yes seriously).


If you're new, like literally new to reading in general, the greeks might be better to save after reading more from the /lit/ starter kit (pic related) because some of the Greeks might feel slowly paced for someone who may have just started reading.

>>11524901

Yes

https://docs.google.com/document/u/1/d/1y8_RRaZW5X3xwztjZ4p0XeRplqebYwpmuNNpaN_TkgM/pub

compare

http://www.openculture.com/2014/01/harold-bloom-creates-a-massive-list-of-works-in-the-western-canon.html

>>11525918
Good post anon

>>11524901

>>11524901
Start with the fucking Iliad. Then continue with the Odyssey

Then Pre-socratics -> Plato -> Aristotle -> Hellenistics

>>11525918
this

Greeks are a gigantic rabbit hole to go down, and you'll soon find out that they kept writing about 1000 years of literature, and that more stuff will most likely arrive in our lifetimes (if they can actually start imaging Vesuvius or stumble across another Nag Hammadi while excavating. The Byzantine's wrote brevariums and epitomes of lost works down to almost the end of the empire, as do the Arabs of the enlightened era, and you start noticing that the classical world didn't really end in the way you like to think about it. Your entire sense of history gets replaced. The political and philosophical forms becomes ways to understand today that you didn't conceive. Even late Byzantium has philosophy and epics that are throwbacks and even parodies of homer Digenes Akritas and his pious murder fuck of the last Amazon comes to mind. But the Greeks were probably the most massively literate pre modern society. It only makes sense that they are so prolific.

If I’m going to be reading Plato, should I just plan on reading all of his works? Or would Euthyphro-Phaedo, Gorgias, Meno, Republic, and Symposium be pretty comprehensive?

>>11524901
Some really good answers in this thread. I was actually wondering, when starting with the Greeks then moving on to the romans and so on, how much time should I spend on each era assuming I read a book a week? I'll be sure to annotate and take notes as well as look at commentary and perhaps watch a YouTube video by an expert after I read.

>>11525956
The first link isn't exhaustive enough. Doesn't have to be too exhaustive but there should be a bit more in there. Also, how long has that doc been under construction for? Crazy!

The second link focuses on literature as opposed to not philosophy. I'm more interested in philosophical thinkers.

Wow, coming to the end of my post I feel like such a debbie downer. Who am I to judge. My bad anon. Thanks for the great links , they're good, I'm just being overly critical. :-p

>>11526342
The Romans are a differently kettle of fish compared to the Greeks.

There isn't much "original" Roman philosophy, but the writings of men like Cicero, Tactitus, Aurelius, Augustine etc are good samples of the times.

>>11526405
So, uh, how much time on each era would be appropriate to have at least some basic understanding of them?

>>11526342
Depends if you just want to go trough quickly or if you enjoy it. Maybe 2 years with the Greeks and 1 with the Romans.

>>11526440
I want to thoroughly understand them. Perhaps 3 years with the Greeks?

>>11526445
>I want to thoroughly understand them
All your life then

>>11526454
Fair enough, I'll start hitting the books them.

Start with the Iliad and finish with the Odyssey, it's the way of Chad

>>11526429
much of Roman lit is history or poetry, not much philosophy. Cicero conglomerates much of Greek ethics, political philosophy and sort of applies it to a Roman context.

Seneca and Lucretius represent Roman Stoicism and Epicureanism, and Augustine presents the fusion between Platonism and Early Christianity.

>>11526165
w-we still are prolific even if you dont read us anymore

>>11526675
>modern greek calls ancient greeks "we"

hello i'm a sarmatian

Start with this

>>11526699
>implying its the same thing
Lets not do this

Start with this

>>11526699
I don't appreciate your contempt for my ancestral claims.

>>11524940
You talking bullshit

>>11526714
You should turklet

Just borrowing this thread to ask a quick question.
What's the title of the Greek book where it is set in a single day?

>>11526725
How about you fuck off from this nice topic instead.
>>11526730
Οδυσσέας lmaooo

>>11526429
i don't read more than about 1h per day and i took some breaks for other things but it took me about a year to read hesiod, homer, homeric hymns, pindar, herodotus, thucydides, xenophon (just the anabasis), every play by aeschylus, sophocles, eruipides and aristophanes (i got really into it so i re-read some plays in different translations) and the presocratics. currently balls deep in plato. i'm estimating a second year for decent familiarity with plato and aristotle.

>>11526714
what contempt? i'm just saying, i'm a member of ancient nobility descended from the amazons and therefore the god ares. which god initiated your proud lineage?

>>11526775
Are you comparing the ancients, whose population was in the millions, with made up or at best, barely historical attested people? Are you from /int?
You need to work on your irony.

>>11526786
the sarmatians, made up? why do you have such contempt for my ancestral claim? i am beginning to doubt the purity of your descent from the proud hellenes, your moral character reminds me more of the subjects of the great king. are you sure that when your hellenic forefathers were debating in the agora no effeminate pants-wearing persian was sneaking into their oikos for a little taste of helen?

>>11526818
...I was clearly talking about the amazon metaphor you used. If you think that I am not descended from the anicents all props to you, but please do so in a civilised manner instead of being all /int/ about it.
Try capitalising your sentences as well.

>>11526828
that you not only accept but promote this fanciful notion of one letter coming in two forms, which your supposed ancestors had no use for, only serves to shame you further. soon you'll be drawing little pictures, like the sons of the nile. maybe you can draw for me the story of the origin of your bastardry, your mother and her mule-driver, as dark as memnon, copulating shamefully as the one that now (in blissful ignorance) calls you "son" was earning his glory in the phalanx.

>>11526699
I actually do have a Greek book on the back burner but it's political.

Is there anything you'd recommend to me?

>>11526675
Oh whoops meant to reply to you
>>11527280

>>11526900
Unlike him I've actually seen modern Sarmatians fag, they have two republics. I don't know what you're trying to claim either, the Greeks are still around and can easily read into the Byzantine era, and most educated ones can read further back. Yes the phonetics became more Slavic. But honestly the Turks became more Greek and Balkan-Semetic mystery meat than the other way around. How many Turkic nomads survived? Modern Turkish also is the biggest scam language since Espenerto. Ataturk made a genuine mistake by not simply turning "Turkey" into a Muslim Greek state instead of a "Turkish" state. If he really had wanted to be a part of European culture. Now his successors fucked it all and Turks have neither the Caliphate, Secularism, or a cohesive country. (But hey at least you can vote for SPD until Germany collapses)

>>11527331
Don't expect the memer to answer, he was clearly illiterate. Also I was refering to the amazons being apocryphical. Dont be like him.

>>11527356
Slavs are always jealous and frustrated, pay them no mind.