/lit/ - Literature

>>22090744
itll hit you and if it doesnt it doesnt. when I read the book in college it did nothing for me. when i re-read it i started crying at the catalogue of ships

>>22090744
book 1 sucks you in immediately, grabbing your attention and holding it. you start right at achilles' wrath and conflict with agamemnon. this is what the poem is about and the poet wastes no time in setting it all up.

book 2 is about taking a step back, giving you a bit of the background, situation, etc., basically the poet letting you know this is epic, look at all these great warriors, these ships, their men, etc.

the illiad is pretentious wank for posers. the only people who like it as if it were harry potter or some shit are right wing losers. you're meant to just study it to understand where literature came on and move on. you're not supposed to get all attached to it. you can't really to be honest. the writing is very primitive

the only people saying its their favorite book have something to prove and probably identify with fight club

>>22090792
this, 95% of people who claim they love it just larp

>>22090744
>I don’t believe I understand a word
are you reading in Greek or what
because I don't see why a translation would have a sudden vocabulary shift for a list

>>22090807
they do, you wouldn't believe, some translators treat the illiad like a playground where everything is allowed

Serious question I've been thinking about for awhile, maybe some people more knowledgable than me can help, but: why do redditors (such as: >>22090792 and >>22090799) hate the iliad so much?

Is it in some way connected to their love of marvel movies? Or maybe video games? I don't really know enough about that stuff to say, just throwing ideas out.

>>22090816
come back when you stop thinking in buzzwords and memes

>>22090807
Not literally it’s of course english, but when it became a catalogue of Greek captains of Greek origins I felt a massive hole burned in my comprehension of what I was reading

>>22090816
if you like the illiad you'll love marvel movies

>>22090816
>waaah waaah why don't you at least pretend to like the thing that I do waah redditor waaah

>>22090816
their minds are too addled with pop culture memes and moutain dew to understand anything beyond a 3rd grade level. they probably thought it was going to be like the ancient greek version of the avengers or something

is the ennis rees translation good

>>22090816
I’m neither of those anons but I kinda agree with them. It is certainly an influential book but when someone says it’s their favorite, especially if they can’t read it in the original, it’s a little head scratching. There are some cool parts, good quotes and themes but I don’t see enough for it to garner being someone’s favorite. That either makes me think they haven’t read a lot or are just parroting opinions

>>22090831
>>22090839
>>22090848

hmm, that doesn't really answer my question, but thank you anyway, mr. redditor's

>>22090851
hm, that's possible. the marvel movie connection was just an idea. i'm not sure if that's the legitimate cause

>>22090837
it's probably because they keep referring to place names that you aren't familiar with
don't worry about it so much, the section is mostly so Homer's listeners can go "hey, that's where WE'RE from!!!" and feel more connected to the story

>>22090854
>NO YOURE NOT ALLOWED TO LIKE THIS BOOK
im just wired differently. its genuinely great.

>>22090854
>but I don’t see enough for it to garner being someone’s favorite
thank you but that wasn't really my question. i wasn't asking about it being someone's favorite. i was asking why do they hate it. which is very different, as you can tell as you've listed out points you enjoy about it yourself.

>>22090816
They're just your average, internet contrarians. They love metal and posting obscure references, too.

>>22090868
None of us have said we hated it

>>22090865
Very refreshing to hear honestly, I am trying to simply work through it and enjoy it but it’s so suffused in reference I’ve found it easy to get lost

>>22090816
They think it makes them appear smarter by disliking whatever other people say is good. Kind of like those people who only like bands that are underground. That's it. That's their identity. They're intelligent by liking other things fewer people like.

>>22090866
This was never said. All I’m saying is it’s a vanilla favorite book
>>22090868
I didn’t say I hate it. I’ve read it a few times

>>22090886
>its vanilla
Yeah man average people are surely just clamoring at the illiad.

>>22090897
For people into literature, yes, it is a boring vanilla favorite

>>22090906
You're speaking from a bit of a bubble to be honest. I don't think you've talked to many people into literature

>>22090860
I recognize you, you are that bored kid who calls everyone mr. redditor in all threads
just fuck off, you are not funny nor interesting

>>22090924
But I have. A mention of the Iliad as a favorite would get an eye roll from me

>>22090792
I feel the same way about the Iliad, but I feel differently about the Odyssey. Therefore, I don’t think that the Iliad’s weaknesses stem from the fact that it is “primitive.”

>>22090924
Nah he's right. Come to r/books saying your favorite book is the iliad and people like that anon and me would absolutely roast you

>>22090947
Ok.

>>22090854
How many people have you encountered that said the Iliad is their “favorite book.” Go back to plebbit. Come back to 4channel when you’re done knocking down paper tigers.

>>22090960
desu I mostly see it on this board

>>22090966
true, i haven't seen anyone really on r/books say that

>>22090951
>>22090971
If you’re going to falseflag at least say r/truelit

>>22090976
what's that?

>>22090960
>the Iliad is their “favorite book.”
I wouldn't ever say that, because the Iliad has twenty-four books. I might, however, say that the Iliad is my favorite poem.

>>22090978
A subreddit that many anons migrated to after things went downhill here. It’s the counterpart to /lit/

>>22090986
k

>>22090816
Well, firstly, it's the feminine urge to be "different" and special so that Daddy loves them, even though they're the most boring cunts imaginable, which ties in with my second point: they are alienated by the manly virtue, genuinely moving pathos and sheer vitality that radiates from the work. And that if they're able to penetrate a decent translation.

>>22091016
Keats is the first person I think of in regards to masculinity or manly virtues

the people who say the illiad is their favorite will also argue with you that achilles isnt gay and larp as christian while ignoring inconvenient anti christian stuff in the illiad

>>22091048
All good poetry is manly. Even if a woman wrote it.

>>22091087
I have never seen a Christian have anything nice to say about the Iliad or the Odyssey. In fact, I've never seen a Christian be anything but disgusted by both. At best you get people like GK Chesterton who quietly seethe quietly instead of loudly about how they're better than the Torah, but they're only doing so to hide how much of a philosemite they are.

Remember when you argue with people on 4chan this >>22091087 is the intelligence level and argument-making ability you’re dealing with. I suggest anyone valuing their time to just ignore them rather than engaging. These people have no emotional control and will incessantly lash out at any perceived slight. For example, watch her reply to my post.

>>22091106
how in the fuckity fuck did you know i was a girl

>>22090854
>>22090886
>>22090906
>>22090947
It is literally the archetype for all of European literature; it deals with topics (war in ancient Greece, gods participating in war, gods fighting amongst themselves and managing the fates of mortals) that don't necessarily find expression in the same way in other works of longer-form (i.e. non-dramatic) fiction; addresses themes (competition between warriors, companionship between warriors, fate, rage, grief, human sympathy) that have central to human experience throughout history, setting the standard for how these themes were to be handled by every other work that followed it; it uses majestically formal language which elevates it beyond verisimilitude (despite knowing when to cleave to naturalistic treatments of certain important subjects for maximum effect), employing its invented idiom of epithets to change things into "things of song", in the memorable phrase of Lattimore's translation; it does all this, due to the fact of its being so primitive, in a very pure and uncorrupted manner; and finally it features multiple strokes of utter dramatic brilliance that carry earth-shattering emotional impact even for modern readers who have no experience in common with the characters, even though the readers were most likely aware of these developments before they read it.

Combine that with the fact of its authentically evoking a bygone era of heroism (bygone many times over at this point) and illuminating many aspects of an extremely important ancient culture, and if you really can't see why it would be considered special, I have to think you're probably either pretty new or you just have no interest whatsoever in understanding the classics and don't care enough to think about why someone might appreciate them - let alone the pretension of saying a choice of a favorite is "vanilla", as if sharing deeply in fundamental human emotions and concerns is something that deserves to be referenced with a snarky, dismissive connotation.

>>22091116
*have been central to human experience

>>22091087
Achilles isn't mentioned as gay a single time in the entire book, in which he claims many women throughout. Homer does however go out of his way at one point to state that Achilles and Patroclus are sleeping on different beds each with a girl of their own. Achilles also refers to Patroclus as his 'brother' multiple times, and talks about their shared childhood growing up as practically foster siblings. You are sick in the head.

>>22091116
>authentically evoking a bygone era of heroism
but its not. homer literally just made this shit up. it probably wasnt even all him.
The writing is primitive. it does not hold up whatsoever

>>22091120
Exhibit A, fucking retard. Yeah man the Greeks totally has no homosexual ideas.

>>22091125
You talk like a redditor and an ESL.
>Yeah man the Greeks totally has no homosexual ideas.
That's a different point and nowhere in my post did I talk about it. At first, I thought you hadn't read the book but I know that even if you had read it you'd have been too dense to get anything out of it without reading the synopsis.

>>22091125
>Yeah man the Greeks totally has no homosexual ideas.
Correct, they didn't.

>>22091132
Achilles is gay. your entire concept of sexuality is backwards anyway. i hate anglos

>>22091125
>Yeah man the Greeks totally has no homosexual ideas
Pablo, we already went over subject-verb agreement in your esl class!

When i was a freshman in university my Greek Classics professor made a sneering point on the idea that anyone would argue that Achilles and Patroclus were not in a homosexual relationship. His PHD was from the best university in the country for classics so who was I to disagree. The only place I have heard of them not being gay was /lit/ Also the only place I have heard of Alexander the great not being gay.

>>22091148
Then you haven’t read enough scholarship. I’m not arguing they weren’t gay by the way, I’m pushing back on your asinine statement that no ine argues they weren’t gay, because there’s plenty of secondary literature that argues they weren’t (as well as they are). It honestly sounds like you don’t know what you’re talking about. Try E.T. Owen for a start.

>>22091177
Why are you being such a dickhead? I am not the one insisting hes gay

>>22091122
It's extremely authentic relative to anything written since the advent of gunpowder, of course the actual truth of the Trojan War is an unknown, don't argue like a faggot - the experience of battle is what I'm talking about.

Yes, styles of writing evolve and become more sophisticated over time, this is true. However anyone who has any familiarity with the history of aesthetic thought knows that the general preference for simplicity over sophistication is a very old and well-established position. The fact that you present the idea that a more sophisticated style is better as obvious and not requiring an argument to support it confirms my judgment of you as either inexperienced or not giving a shit about discussing properly.

>>22091148
Probably right, but unless he was equally derisive about the idea that homosexual relationships were interchangeable with heterosexual ones in terms of their place/function in society, he's laughably deluded.

>>22091177
considering hector, an obvious hetero, is the hero of the story and achilles, an overly emotional dude who seethes about everything, is the anti-hero, it's not like him being gay would be some great endorsement of homosexuality.

>>22091199
that german guy incels post about lately who wrote about war is more connected than homer was. you're just an illiad fanboy

>>22091134
The only reason Achilles was portrayed as bi is because the decadent era of Greek academia/poetry 500+ years after the fact--which was a different culture, and ethnically different too, from Homer's time--had a handful of homos of whom a few chose to portray Achilles and Patroclus as such. And, the Greeks like most cultures had no real hard concept of historicity to boot. The whole eromenos/erastes thing probably didn't even exist in Homer's time.
Also to call them "gay" rather than bisexual is clearly in bad faith since this is directly from the Iliad:
>But Achilles slept in the innermost part of the well-builded hut, and by his side lay a woman that he had brought from Lesbos, [665] even the daughter of Phorbas, fair-cheeked Diomede. And Patroclus laid him down on the opposite side, and by him in like manner lay fair-girdled Iphis, whom goodly Achilles had given him when he took steep Scyrus, the city of Enyeus.
Alexander possibly might have had a male lover though, partly because of the Homeric influence ironically enough.
All of these men had children and were nothing like modern faggots either way.
>>22091148
There are many academics in the post-classical tradition who argue that Achilles was likely heterosexual. There are also plenty of retards in top PhD programs.

>>22091204
Everyone can see through your samefagging because of your inept command of English. Go pass your esl class first then come back.

>>22091224
>samefagging
i have no delusion of being anyone else though, im literally just responding to posts you retard. its not samefagging if you're responding to people

>>22091204
You really don't see the difference, with respect to the idea of "heroism", between hand-to-hand combat and the use of firearms? Junger himself wrote about feeling that technology had deflated the heroic element of war. And you don't see the difference in the unique value of a written account of something that ended hundreds of years ago vs. a written account of something of which we also have video recordings? But regardless, all this is just minutiae of one peripheral point among many that you completely ignored. It's ok though, I don't expect to get anywhere with you, just wanted to provide a reasonable take to counter-signal your thoughtless statement.

>you're just an iliad fanboy
I don't have any particular personal attachment to it, it is not part of my identity in any way, I don't think about it often, there are tons of books I prefer and find more interesting or enjoyable, it probably wouldn't come near my top 25 books on most days. And yet despite all that I am capable of understanding the very real reasons why it appeals to people.

>>22090744
Strong advice is to reread the catalogue of ships with pic related. It will ground everything both in the chapter and in the story going forward. Don't listen to plebs who tell you to skip.

>>22091087
Achilles isn’t gay you troon. What parts specifically are anti-Christian? Considering that it predates Christianity by many years.

>>22091322
achilles is the gay anti-christ. you can cope how you want larping tradcath

>>22090744
They’re describing a lot of geography and listing a lot of names here, this was a little incoherent and exhausting for me when I first read it but it’s only for this book. What translation are you reading?
>>22090792
What are your favorite books, anon, and don’t LARP. The Iliad can be a little redundant but the story is pretty fantastic: a great soldier gets cuckolded by his leader for criticizing him and asks his mom to delegate with other gods to make his side lose until his leader needs to crawl back and beg for his help again. The petty politics between the gods, the voyeuristic descriptions of glory and horror in battle, and the great intellectual dialogues between these strong-willed characters, among other things, make this story timeless and it’s why we still read it thousands of years later.
>>22090839
Not exactly, Marvel movies are pretty soulless. Even if they’re echoing mythic structures there’s really no spirit but vapid commercialism.
>>22090854
>A book can’t be your favorite if you haven’t read it in its language of origin

>>22090744
I do not care for Homer; other Greeks were better

>>22090792
fag

>>22091100
Jean Calvin actually liked both a lot, going as far to quote from the Odyssey in book one of the institutes of Christian religion. I had read a document about the founding of the university in Geneva aswell, and he mentioned that he wanted the students to read Homer.

>>22091659
Reading Fagles, tried Fitzgerald but this is far superior in a lyrical sense

>>22090792
stopped reading after four words

>>22090854
>when someone says it’s their favorite, especially if they can’t read it in the original, it’s a little head scratching
I agree with this part. Especially if you read an English translation. There's just so much you lose.

>>22091112
i guess the part about Achilleus being gay gave it away

>>22091116
This