/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.19373488]

How often do you read the Iliad anon? How many times have you read it?

[Anonymous No.19373512]

I've never read it and never will

[Anonymous No.19373529]

>>19373488
I hire a travelling bard to sing it to me. Strangely the number of ships from Randwick, NSW, Australia has increased with each telling.

[Anonymous No.19373543]

>>19373488
I'm reading it for the first time (following this chart and reading the side books as well).

I love it... The imagery is so amazing if you can think of being there listening to bards singing this thing without any idea as to what warfare is really like. I love all the nature imagery... I just read the part where Diomedes was introduced during battle and he was being compared to a lion charging after white lambs. Shit was fucking powerful and my mind was blown. I also love how some scenes are basically like modern cinema like there's a part where the battle is starting and it was describing with words the sound/thunder of footsteps etc and gradually moving away from the battle - comparing it to a shepherd high in the mountains hearing the beginning rumblings of a storm miles away. And shit like when Priam and his army gathering likes bees and shit. There's also really funny moments in the book too like when a bastard was being raised by another woman as her own and the dude going after him was described as "giving him attention" like his step-mother did and it described him being killed in the most brutal way. I let out a hearty chuckle lmao

FUCK brah. I love it. Can't wait to finish it and get to the Odyssey.

[Anonymous No.19373608]

>>19373488
Once, because it's a Grecian version of cape shit for tryhards. It really should only be read once as a precursor to Greek antiquity. Twice maybe as a refresher. But more than that is just Greek Manga fanaticism.

[Anonymous No.19373656]

>>19373543
finally a man after my of own heart, i'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news but the odyssey pales in comparison to the kino experience of the iliad, but fret not after reading them both, continue with herodotus you will love it i guarantee,

[Anonymous No.19373712]

>>19373608
Shitty brainlet take get filtered

[Anonymous No.19373739]

>>19373712
I’m reading it and I really like it obviously. I’m astonished at how much it reads like a modern action movie.

[Anonymous No.19373897]

>>19373656
>finally a man after my of own heart
<3

>odyssey pales in comparison to the kino experience of the iliad
Yea, I would think so, but I am still excited for it. I read the Edith Hamilton version and found it very fun. I was also very impressed with simple scenes like Odysseus finally coming home and seeing the puppy he raised come to be an old dog but he couldn't break his cover and the dog just dying right after that :( . Also, all the wacky shit like the Cyclops escape etc. Illiad is an epic do doubt, but Odyssey is an adventure (ok maybe I shouldn't rate it like that before I read the full version lol).

>herodotus
I'm so very looking forward to Histories... I loved history in high school and trying to discern things like bias, motives, figuring out historical development contexts and making connections between seemingly random things. Going to be crazy as hell doing it to what's basically the first history book. And it's told like a story almost too, so it will be fun :)

Does anyone here dream of finding a new untouched untranslated written work of greek? Imagine if we found a new lost poem or a library... ^o^

[Anonymous No.19374302]

>>19373712
What's your take then? You think it's innacurate to admit it's ancient cape shit?

[Anonymous No.19374350]

>>19373488
Twice.

Once in school and once reread on my own terms.

I think that was enough for me.

[Anonymous No.19374356]

>>19373543
Mythology is a great digest, but not aure I would start there if I already knew I was going to properly read it.

[Anonymous No.19374375]

>>19374356
You can read it any way you would like - there is no wrong. I like the chart because Hamilton is really a nice general summary of the world and the characters you commonly come across. Trojan War by Barry Strauss was nice cause it tells you that the Iliad wasn't actually all myth - Troy existed. And it talks about the regions around Troy, the neighbors, what was traded, what they found in Troy, how many times it was rebuilt, etc all based on actual real evidence. It adds a weight to reading the Iliad like you've never seen before because it makes you think: which of these characters were real and basically got deified due to their achievements? The part with the Book of Ships hits you like a rock: was this included as basically an intro by bards to give thanks and recognition to all families/peoples that participated in the war? Imagine your family name getting called out while you sit and enjoy the Bard's song... it would feel mighty and would make feel like my ancestors are watching me :)

[Anonymous No.19374392]

>>19374356
Whoops, sorry I totally misread what you meant in my reply >>19374375

But, yes maybe Hamilton would spoil too much if you want the world to be even more mysterious? I really liked the intro cause it set the mood for me for all of Greek mythology:

>GREEK and Roman mythology is quite generally supposed to show us the way the human race thought and felt untold ages ago. Through it, according to this view, we can retrace the path from civilized man who lives so far from nature, to man who lived in close companionship with nature; and the real interest of the myths is that they lead us back to a time when the world was young and people had a connection with the earth, with trees and seas and flowers and hills, unlike anything we ourselves can feel. When the stories were being shaped, we are given to understand, little distinction had as yet been made between the real and the unreal. The imagination was vividly alive and not checked by the reason, so that anyone in the woods might see through the trees a fleeing nymph, or bending over a clear pool to drink, behold in the depths a naiad’s face.

>The prospect of traveling back to this delightful state of things is held out by nearly every writer who touches upon classical mythology, above all by the poets. In that infinitely remote time primitive man could
>Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea;
>Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn.

>And we for a moment can catch, through the myths he made, a glimpse of that strangely and beautifully animated world.
>But a very brief consideration of the ways of uncivilized peoples everywhere and in all ages is enough to prick that romantic bubble. Nothing is clearer than the fact that primitive man, whether in New Guinea today or eons ago in the prehistoric wilderness, is not and never has been a creature who peoples his world with bright fancies and lovely visions. Horrors lurked in the primeval forest, not nymphs and naiads. Terror lived there, with its close attendant, Magic, and its most common defense, Human Sacrifice. Mankind’s chief hope of escaping the wrath of whatever divinities were then abroad lay in some magical rite, senseless but powerful, or in some offering made at the cost of pain and grief.

Does that not excite you?! :D

[Anonymous No.19374431]

>>19374302
The Iliad is more than ebin battles, it's about fate, honor, friendship, mortality, war and peace. Thinking it's dumb action capeshit is the most bottom-tier I-had-to-read-this-for-college take there is.

[Anonymous No.19375490]

Once, waste of time

[Anonymous No.19375549]

Books 1, 23, and 24 are the best

[Anonymous No.19375573]

Am I too dim? I tried reading the Illiad but the language was tiring and I got bored like twenty pages in because I had no idea what was going on. How do I get smarter?

[Anonymous No.19375581]

>>19374431
This. Thank you anon. If I here another person say mythology is comparable to fantasy books or capeshit again I'm gonna kill them.
>>19375573
Which translation did you try?;

[Anonymous No.19375584]

[Anonymous No.19375589]

>>19375581
>Which translation
Fagels

[Anonymous No.19375593]

>>19375589
I have read Fagles, I think its a beautiful translation. I was hooked immediately in book 1, are you getting stuck on the ships book by any chance?

[Anonymous No.19375610]

>>19375589
Yeah I'm with the other anon, I like fagles. I've read it three times now and each a different translation (pope and lattimore). I find fagles the easiest, so you either need to slow down or use a reading guide until you get used to it. No shame in going slowly or having to use resources to make the read easier.

[Anonymous No.19375651]

>>19375593
>>19375610
I'm not sure, I got around 20 pages in and I wasn't really enjoying it in any way. I like Shakespeare and the Bible well enough, but I'm also terrible with poetry so maybe that's why it didn't click with me?

[Anonymous No.19375660]

>>19375651
I've never read one, but prose translations exist. Try pushing through to book 5 or so and if it doesn't grab you then try the prose.

[Anonymous No.19375799]

>>19373897
I want a Diomedes epic going over him escaping from his whore wife's suitors in Greece (playing off Odysseus killing all of his wife's) and then having Italian adventures before being raised to immortality. Aeneas can guest star.
I want at least an entire chapter's worth of Diomedes/Athena erotica. They have a kid at the end, they name her Minerva.

Anons stop me before I get too wild here...

[Anonymous No.19375851]

>>19375799
Did Diomedes have a whore wife? Or are you just inverting the Odyssey and I'm too dumb to realize.

[Anonymous No.19375857]

>>19375651
I usually don't do this but maybe read the introduction to get some (historical) context?

[Anonymous No.19375889]

>>19375799
Diomedes is reddit incarnate

[Anonymous No.19375890]

>>19373488
never
zero

[Anonymous No.19376174]

bumo

[Anonymous No.19376179]

>>19373488
read it once so far, cant help but think of it often, will likely read again soon

[Anonymous No.19376195]

>>19375651
which translation? If you haven’t, try Fagles’ translation, it’s the easiest to get into from all i’ve heard people say. Of course, for me, it’s the only I’ve read so I can’t say if it’s any better or worse than others, but it certainly was great to read. Maybe try reading some material about the iliad to get you into it? I don’t know. Reading it for me was very cinematic, perhaps try looking at it through that lens