/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.5769106]

if Homer never existed than who wrote his books?

[Anonymous No.5769111]

This is like asking, "If God never existed, then (then, not than) who wrote the Bible."

Many hands and mouths worked on it--so many that it would be dumb to attribute them to one.

[Anonymous No.5769150]

>>5769106
Shakespeare

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.5769188]

>>5769111
You're comparing the uniformity of Homer's complex style to the veritable collage that is the Bible? You're comparing the collection of stories about Jews, with Homer's unified narratives based on firm plot?

I'm sure the story Homer used developed with many different mouths, but poems themselves are far too well designed to be the work of evolution, they are two of THE greatest works of Western civilization in terms of style, and Aristotle hailed them as perfect employment of plot. If they evolved, then their quality would vary immensely from one part to another, and they wouldn't be such a definitive and clearly beginning and end to each work in which all intermediary narration works flawlessly from and to, respectively.

No doubt Homer employed stock story-telling phrases, but whatever he did appropriate in larger quantity he almost surely rewrote and worked into his story. If the story evolved, for instance, Menelaus and Paris would not arranged to duel so late in the war, since that was established before the work was written and it was clearly an event that would happen early in the war, not nine years in. What you'd have is an expanding story that covered more and more ground, but we don't have that, what actually existed was several poems about the Trojan War, sometimes with conflicting narration, but none remotely matched either the Iliad or the Odyssey in quality. If they were all created the same way, it's highly unlikely those two would stick out so prominently. Even Apollonius failed to match Homer's quality, which he would have no trouble doing if Homer was a hodgepodge of writers adding to each other over generations.

[Anonymous No.5769201]

What does it mean that basically the first guy to write a couple novels has never been surpassed?

And of course people will quibble about "first" and about "novel," but ignoring all that, how is it that the first is the best?

That says SOMETHING about humans, but I'm unsure exactly what.

[Anonymous No.5769203]

Someone else who may or may not have been named Homer. It doesn't really matter.

[Anonymous No.5769261]

Marge

[Anonymous No.5769366]

>>5769201
Is it really the best though? Or are we putting it on a pedistoole simply because it was first?

[📚 No.5769473]

>>5769201

It's been surpassed more than several times. I hardly doubt you even read it in its original language to make a complete evaluation of it.

[Anonymous No.5769485]

Several Greek writers putting on paper a story that was already known and popular in the oral tradition. Or maybe one guy who was just not named Homer.

[Anonymous No.5769707]

>>5769261
Fuckin beat me to it

[Anonymous No.5771298]

>>5769473
My mother read both the Iliad and The Odyssey to me when I was a child, and I'm just terribly fond of them both. I've read most translations, and I really am convinced The Iliad is the greatest story ever written. There's nothing more primal or elemental the The Iliad.

[Anonymous No.5771325]

>>5769201
>What does it mean that basically the first guy to write a couple novels has never been surpassed?
Virgil would like a word with you.
>inb4 fanfiction

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.5771376]

>>5769201
>What does it mean that basically the first guy to write a couple novels has never been surpassed?
He's a Greek, it figures.

Greeks were first to:

>Term logic

>Deductive logic

>Grammar as a study

>Philosophy based on reasoned argument.

>Science that only admitted testable theory (stipulated by Hippocrates in On Ancient Medicine).

>Prose narrative.

>Drama

>Democracy, including citizens who didn't own property.

>Metrically complex poetry.

>Choral ode (as opposed to simply chant).

>History as a study.

>Sophisticated, lifelike sculpture.

>Public education (Sparta).

>Working class (non-property owners who weren't slaves) literacy..

Among many other achievements.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.5771398]

>>5771325
It's not just that it's fanfiction, the Aeneid is virtually a tribute to Homer, the first half being a tribute to the Odyssey, the second half to the Iliad.

On top of that, you're out of your mind if you're claiming it *surpasses* Homer.

[Anonymous No.5771650]

>>5771398
It's not that it's a tribute; it's an elevation. It has the confidence and power to challenge Homer through its simultaneous consistency and redefinition of themes/motifs etc from the Iliad and Odyssey. This is of course ignoring the cultural view of destiny the Romans had of themselves, which is just stupendous in the hands of Virgil.

Calling it fanfiction is the ultimate sign of plebiness.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.5771668]

>>5771650
> It has the confidence and power to challenge Homer through its simultaneous consistency and redefinition of themes/motifs etc from the Iliad and Odyssey.
Yes, it replaced the nuanced protagonists of Homer with a pious Mary Sue, a Captain America of Rome.

>Calling it fanfiction is the ultimate sign of plebiness.
I think it's a great work of literature, Virgil is a extraordinary poet, that doesn't mean it isn't fanfic and extremely derivative of Homer and that isn't conscious of trying to be for the Romans what Homer was for the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.5771676]

The library of Alexandria wrote it. They had every version of anyone who had written it down and they had come in contact with, through their stealing evryone's books to make a catalogue civic policy. They edited out the stories and jokes which didn't appear in enough versions, and wrote homer at the top. Then Caesar burned the archive by accident trying to set fire to some boats.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.5771711]

>>5771676
Fragments found predating the Library of Alexandria and even Peisistratos nigh completely coincide with the version we have today. The cananization of Homer was not about picking from widely divergent versions, it was just pruning bullshit that other poets occasionally tried to sneak in in their copies, Homer's original writings were a hit and transmitted from Italy to Asia to Egypt. In fact, all the oldest fragments are found in Egypt, particularly tombs, since papyrus elsewhere decayed.

[Anonymous No.5771725]

>>5771298
>I really am convinced The Iliad is the greatest story ever written. There's nothing more primal or elemental the The Iliad.

This nigger gets it.

>>5769473

Taste is subjective. But if what epic poems can even compare to the Iliad other than perhaps Shahmameh?

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.5771744]

>>5771725
>But if what epic poems can even compare to the Iliad other than perhaps Shahmameh?
Divine Comedy is the only one I know of, in terms of quality.

[Anonymous No.5771759]

>>5771676

You know there's a story about Alcibiades who contacts a school teacher to ask him for his copy of the Iliad; the school teacher doesn't have a copy so Alcibiades punches him in the face.

Alcibiades continues seeking out a school teacher with the Iliad, finds one and this school teacher has made notes in the margins so Alcibiades gets the teacher a promotion.

Alcidiades was alive in the 5th century B.C. The Iliad, as we know it, would have been in written (not simply spoken and perform) from about the 8th or 7th century B.C. Homer, as far as we know, is the guy who wrote it and unified it.

[Anonymous No.5771762]

>>5771744

While the Divine Comedy is very good its structure is lacking when compared to Homer.

[Anonymous No.5771827]

>>5771668
>Yes, it replaced the nuanced protagonists of Homer with a pious Mary Sue, a Captain America of Rome.
Aeneas is arguably the most developed 'Homeric' hero, more than any in the Iliad and the Odyssey. He yearns for glory while perishing in combat just as the men at Troy did. This is the fundamental (and about the most complex) characteristic of homeric heroes; the selfish pursuit of everlasting fame through death at the hands of an opponent.
But Virgil takes this archetype and enriches it. Aeneas is disallowed the hero's death, the respite from toil. He must shoulder the burden of the gods since Virgil has made him the tool of Fate. No character in Homer's works endures this level of internal conflict. This is in itself a large area of scholarly study.
So while Aeneas is embodies certain ideal Roman traits like piety (this aspect alone is incredibly developed by Virgil - only a fool would see it as deserving of criticism), he is a richer character than the Homeric protagonists. Calling him a Mary Sue...well it shows the level of your understanding of the work.

>and extremely derivative of Homer
It's 'derivative' in the sense that Virgil has the skill to essentially say that he is great enough to be linked with Homer's achievement, and the authority to remould+develop certain aspects of Homer's works. You've clearly got a bone to pick and it's resulting in silly little comments no student of the epics worth their salt would lower themselves to.

>and that isn't conscious of trying to be for the Romans what Homer was for the Greeks.
This is confirms a huge lack of knowledge on the subject, because what the Aeneid was for the culture that produced it has no comparison in the Iliad+Odyssey. This is the defining difference between Virgil and Homer. Homer doesn't go far beyond portraying ideal Greek traits. The idea that the Romans had of themselves as divinely-sanctioned rulers of the world is not found in any shape or form in Greek culture. And this is what the Aenied is about. Virgil took this unique Roman cultural characteristic and created an epic out of it; the Aeneid's value to Roman identity goes far beyond what the Iliad and Odyssey did for the Greeks.

[Anonymous No.5771833]

>>5771762
>its structure is lacking when compared to Homer.
What does that even mean?

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.5771839]

>>5771762
Which translation(s) have you read of Homer?

Which translation(s) have you read of Dante?

[Anonymous No.5771955]

>>5771839

Fagles' translation is my favorite translation of the Iliad. I sadly cannot remember who's translation of the Divine Comedy I read, but the translation seemed good; in the sense that it read well.

[Anonymous No.5771962]

>>5769106
My dick wrote them in your mom's ass.

next question.

[ΟΥΤΙΣ No.5771973]

>>5771955
You should probably read Mandelbaum or better yet Musa if you haven't.

[Anonymous No.5771986]

>>5771973

For Dante I assume?

[Anonymous No.5773693]

If you read a prose translation of Homer, do you still get to feel his brilliant style? Is there anything that gets lost in a prose translation, as compared to a verse one?

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5773722]

>>5771376

yeah, but not for epic poetry, so homer wasn't first there

their calliope wandered among shumers first

>'This Humbaba, his voice is the Deluge,
>his speech is fire, his breath is death!
>He hears the forest murmur at sixty leagues' distance:
>who is there would venture into his forest?

also

>Prose narrative

what do you mean exactly?

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5773725]

also dante should be read translted to terza rima, all non rhymed translations automatically go into the trash

>>5773693
if you read it translated with hexameter, why not

[Anonymous No.5773743]

>>5773725
As in, only Hammond is acceptable? Or is Rieu fine as well?

> all non rhymed translations automatically go into the trash
Do you mean this only for Dante translations, or translations of epic poetry in general? Because a prose translation of Homer will most likely be non-rhymed.

[Anonymous No.5773754]

How do we know it wasn't a woman?

[Anonymous No.5773756]

>>5773725
>should be read translted to terza rima, all non rhymed translations automatically go into the trash

>trying to translate poetic form across syntactical and phonetic gaps

But then again you're also the trip that believes Milton didn't rhyme because he was lazy so really I'm not surprised.

You should keep posting though. Your opinions are almost comical in their unabashed naivete.

[kitty !kitty/EnNg No.5773764]

>>5773743

i think a translation should follow the means of the original poem i.e. meter, rhyme, alliteration etc as close as possible

nothing really prevents from using terza rima in english, it's hard, but it was done and even several times, so there is no reason not to ignore all the other translations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_translations_of_Dante's_Divine_Comedy
penguin classics uses one of them btw