/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.23203344]

It's interesting how Western Literature begins with Homer's Iliad, and it also never surpasses it. The Iliad is the beginning and end of Western literature, it's only downhill from here folks. They tell you start with the Greeks because the Greeks really are the best.

[Anonymous No.23203349]

Wait until Max Lawton release his novels, chud.

[Anonymous No.23203679]

>>23203344
The Odyssey is better

[Anonymous No.23203688]

This fag thinks western literature is a competition for coolest story

[Anonymous No.23203805]

>western
Bullshit pseud term used to justify brownoid influence on europe

[Anonymous No.23203809]

>>23203805
Take your meds

[Anonymous No.23203828]

>>23203809
He's right for the wrong reason. The West is an interesting construct. There's been far too much interaction in history for me to believe in anything more than a semi-permeable and amorphous West.

[Anonymous No.23203834]

>>23203679
Wrong

[Anonymous No.23203847]

>>23203805
The Iliad is the first notable western book because it makes emphasis to separate the noble west of Achaea from the barbarian easterners from Anatolia/ Troy.

[Anonymous No.23203849]

>>23203847
Wrong

[Anonymous No.23203856]

How much money have the Iliad and Odyssey made over the years?

[Anonymous No.23204030]

>>23203344
yeah

[Anonymous No.23204043]

>>23203856
this nigga been eating pussy

[Anonymous No.23204061]

>>23203344
>The noble west of Achaea from the barbarian easterners from Anatolia/ Troy.
That makes no sense. The Achaeans are represented as more barbaric. They otherwise may as well be as a singular identity, with no distinct divide of culture or personality, they share the same Gods as well as the favor of those Gods, and you never read the Iliad.

Compare Priam and Aggaememnon. Compare Hector and Achilles. Consider the fact that AENEAS is with the Trojans. Stupid

[Anonymous No.23204119]

>>23204061
meant for >>23203847

[Anonymous No.23204131]

>>23204061
I was being facetious but the Iliad is actually sort of like the Greek founding mythos and the Greek characters stand in stark contrast to the Trojans as a clear divide between us vs them. Your opinion is tantamount to saying that portraying your enemies in a dignified manner means that you are upholding them as your kin which I shouldn’t have to clarify why that is dumb. Also the Aeneas foundation story of Rome is from the Romans and a thousand years later. Aeneas in the Iliad is some random Trojan dude and given not much more significance than other minor Greek and Trojan soldiers.

[Anonymous No.23204217]

>>23203856
Bout tree fiddy

[Anonymous No.23204296]

>>23203344
>it also never surpasses it.
*blocks your path*

[Anonymous No.23204425]

>>23203805
And the /pol/ ideologues just keep getting dumber, folks.

[Anonymous No.23204432]

>>23203349
If Jake Paul ever decides to go /lit/
>watch out!

[Anonymous No.23205357]

>>23204217
Lel

[Anonymous No.23205400]

>>23203834
Right (my opinion not yours)

[Anonymous No.23205839]

>>23203688
Is it not?

[Anonymous No.23205947]

>>23203344
2/3 of the poem is just mind-numbingly repetitive battles.

[Anonymous No.23206054]

>>23203805
True, if they hadn't forced written language upon us we would still be blissfully chucking spears at each other and listening to based blind bard recitation instead of r*ading b*oks... VGH...

[Anonymous No.23206084]

>>23205947
Maybe try reading it before talking about it

[Anonymous No.23206089]

>>23206084

[Anonymous No.23206093]

>>23206089
Again, that's a 4chan post. Try actually reading the book until you make comments about it.

[Anonymous No.23206114]

>>23205947
>>23206084
>>23206089
>>23206093
Let's just compromise and admit that a few books and long passages are indeed like that but not 2/3rd of the entire work.

[Anonymous No.23206125]

>>23203344
How readable are these books if you have aphantasia? I can't form an apple in my mind's eye and in fact don't have a mind's eye and instead think in concepts rather than images.

[Anonymous No.23206329]

>>23206125
Aphantasia isn't real. Next

[Anonymous No.23206404]

>>23204131
I don't think it's dumb to argue that portraying your enemies in a dignified manner suggests that they are your 'kin'. The Iliad suggests that a great tragedy of war is needless suffering and the loss of human life. It would be quite barbaric and antithetical to your point if the Greeks indeed viewed the Trojans as lesser and, therefore, had no moral significance. What is the point of dignifying a rat?

[Anonymous No.23206445]

>>23206089
unironically those sections go hard in both Homer and Vergil.

[Anonymous No.23206473]

>>23206089

[Anonymous No.23206509]

Haven't read the Iliad or Odyssey yet, but I'm curious as to why it's good. Do you mean by "good" anything more than "influential"? Are you judging it by different literary standards? Call me a psued, but I'm a bit sceptical of the idea that a 2800 year old greek poet created a work of literature which remains unserpassed.

[Anonymous No.23206512]

>>23206089
I made a post like this on /lit/ years ago and got insulted relentlessly. Seriously why the fuck should I care if a guy who owned 5 boats died in the same paragraph he was introduced?

[Anonymous No.23206522]

>>23206509
It is good because it makes me feel good whilst I read it

[Anonymous No.23206994]

>>23206509
The Odyssey is an incredible reflection on the nature of man’s identity and his relationship to the world around him, both natural world and also to his peers and his wife and family. It is a book where you search for your own identity within it much as Odysseus seeks to reclaim his own birthright.

[Anonymous No.23208635]

>>23206994
lmao, imagine thinking this

[Anonymous No.23208728]

>>23203344
this reads like a half-baked first impression; you haven't read a modicum of the canon.

[Anonymous No.23210045]

>>23203344
The Iliad and the Odyssey are strange literary artifacts, in that in modern times they can only ever be viewed from an external and technical viewpoint. They're profoundly spiritual works, but the Greek warrior ethos on which they were built and must be experienced through has long since ceased to exist, thus the works can never truly be understood on a deeper level, beyond the superficial structure.

[Anonymous No.23210387]

>>23203847
That doesn’t seem right Troy isn’t depicted as alien or barbarian. The Trojan’s all speak Greek, worship Greek gods, and maintain Greek customs. They are some kind of pseudo-Greek Dardan people. I don’t know exactly how Homer would have divided the various regional ethnic groups of if that even was the most salient division for him. I think it was Herodotus and later Greeks who emphasized the East vs West aspect in light of the Persian conflicts.

[Anonymous No.23210502]

>>23210387
Hector is also incredibly sympathetic and arguably the better man (though certainly not the better fighter) than Achilles. Even Socrates compares himself to Hector.

[Anonymous No.23210532]

>>23206089
honestly, I laughed at so many of these parts. Some elaborate description about his family and his grandfathers sheep, just to tell me he got stabbed above the nipple and died

[Anonymous No.23210614]

>>23210387
The real life Wilusa was a borderland, vassal kingdom of the Hittites so politically they weren’t Greek. They may have been Greek speaking however as the Greek name Alexandros turns up occasionally in mentions of Wilusa.

[Anonymous No.23210681]

>>23205839
That’s one component of it, but it’s also the source of a classical education. A man who reads from the western canon will be better than a man who does not. The same cannot be said for a man who reads just the Iliad. There’s more to learn.

[Anonymous No.23211862]

I'm getting filtered hard by lattimore's translation bros, I picked it up as a challenge for myself but it's kicking my ass. I skimmed over the entire second half of book 2 because all of the names of people and places blended together and I barely retained any of them except for the singular mention of Achilles and his angsting. am I doomed? what am I missing?

[Anonymous No.23211903]

>>23211862
that's the catalogue of ships, it not really part of the "story," just something that was important to the greeks historically like the parts of the bible where barazoam begat zagabodiel who begat karablazon and so on for 10 pages. just realx bro, getting all anxious about whether you "get" what you're reading is precisely how you end up not getting it

[Anonymous No.23211929]

>>23211903
that's good to hear. I'm trying to relax but I might be relaxing too much, as I frequently need to go back and reread passages. I'm going to take my time and focus on comprehending anything that isn't a list of people, places, and boats