Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Discussion - Homer, The Iliad
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Iliad Reading Schedule
In talking about what is arguably the most famous story in Western literature and a version of it which only looks at a short time in a ten years war -- is it really necessary to worry about spoilers?What exactly would the spoilers be? (view spoiler)
In fact I'm not sure what the enormous suspense is anyway -- Homer does not seem to be concerned with suspense -- if for no other reason than this is an audience who already knew the story.
Bill wrote: "In talking about what is arguably the most famous story in Western literature and a version of it which only looks at a short time in a ten years war -- is really necessary to worry about spoilers?..."As I said in the post on background, I'm going to be much more relaxed about spoilers here than I would be in other works. I agree with you and Lily, and probably others, that the basic story isn't any great surprise, and would have been well known to Homer's audience, so the key here isn't the basic story itself, but what Homer does with it.
What I'm mostly concerned with is keeping everybody engaged in the ongoing discussion as it proceeds, and providing the time to explore the events and values of each book as we get to it. It's not so much broad plot spoilers per se that I'm worried about as it is the discussion getting ahead of the reading schedule. What happens in Book 13, for example, should wait to be discussed until the right time for discussing Book 13. And there are some elements which would probably constitute traditional spoilers, such as how the gods react (and interact) in certain situations which shouldn't be talked about until we get to them.
As long as we all keep two points in mind, things should run smoothly. First: the general outlines of the story are no secret, would have been known to Homer's original audience, and are well known to almost any reader here, so revealing, say, that Troy eventually falls to the Greeks isn't a spoiler. Second: we should be sensitive to letting participants, and first time readers in particular, encounter the events in the order and the way Homer chose to present them.
Oh, and third: if there are basic facts that Homer counted on his audience knowing and which it is important to know to get a fuller understanding of the work, I think it's not only okay but appropriate to introduce those facts.
I think, for example, of such facts as that Achilles was the foremost and best warrior of the Greek forces, that Agamemnon was the leader of the expeditionary force but that he was not the king of the Greeks in general (they weren't a country as we think of it today, but were a collection of city-states each with its own king), that Achilles was the son of the mating of a human and a goddess, Thetis, things like that. These aren't spoilers in my mind because they aren't facts which Homer intended to keep secret from the reader until such time as he chooses to disclose them as part of his development of the plot, but are basic cultural facts of the time, such as knowing today that England has a Queen but the United States has neither a king nor a queen.
I hope I haven't just muddied the waters even more here!
Whoa -- the United States has neither a king nor a queen!!???
Laurele wrote..."
;). Finishing Book 2 this evening. Want to be ready. Reading Fagles.
;). Finishing Book 2 this evening. Want to be ready. Reading Fagles.
So far, I'm finding Fagles better with The Odyssey and returning to Lattimore. I'm curious -- has anyone tried the new available in hardcover only version by Stephen Mitchell?
http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...The above is an absolutely delightful interview of Robert Fagles by Patricia Storace that appeared in The Paris Review, Summer 1991, No. 151. I much recommend perusing it if you intend to dally with this Iliad discussion.
(Eman -- thank you for your favorable comments a few weeks ago about The Paris Review. They enticed me to pull this article when I saw it mentioned while looking for some leads on current Homeric studies and scholars.)
Bill wrote: "So far, I'm finding Fagles better with The Odyssey and returning to Lattimore. I'm curious -- has anyone tried the new available in hardcover only version by Stephen Mitchell?"The Mitchell edition is not the full Iliad, but is based on a controversial version of the Iliad which claims to omit material that was added as later emendations. It probably isn't the best version to read here, since it omits many passages which may be discussed, so the reader will be left wondering how they missed that point (they missed it because the editors omitted it entirely from the text).
Here's an abstract of the New Yorker's review of the Mitchell version (I prefer calling it that to calling it a translation) of the Iliad.
http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics...
If you want to read the whole article, I think you either need to pay for it online or get a copy from your library (most libraries in my experience get the New Yorker, and those that don't can usually get back copies)
Lily wrote: "http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...The above is an absolutely delightful interview of Robert Fagles by Patricia Storace that appeared in The Pa..."
Thanks. Great find. I do notice that he also praises Pope's translation -- I'm really going to have to pay attention to it this time!
I liked him quoting Matthew Arnold on Homer: Matthew Arnold’s unforgettable touchstones—Homer is simple, direct, swift, and above all, noble.
I also liked his emphasis on the fact that Homer was intended to be heard, not read. For at least one and probably several hundred years, nobody ever read Homer because the culture had no written language. The best way to enjoy Homer, I think, if you lack the luxury of sitting before a bard listening to him sing it, is to read one of the poetic translations aloud. Lattimore's may be closest to the line rhythms of the original, but there are many very read-aloud-able translations.
Great find. Thanks.
Everyman wrote: "...I do notice that he also praises Pope's translation -- I'm really going to have to pay attention to it this time! ..."The words Fagles uses for that praise are intriguing: "Thanks to Maynard ['great Alexander Pope scholar' with whom Fagles did graduate work], I came to realize, early on, that Pope’s Homer is really an original English poem on the order of Dryden’s translation of the Aeneid and Milton’s Paradise Lost."
What does one interpret those words to mean? E.g., "original English poem"? What is the significance of Dryden's translation (of The Aeneid)? Paradise Lost, of course, is an original English poem. Is Pope's rendition something rather independent of the original Iliad, rather than a translation per se?
I'm well on schedule for this! I've got another 50 pages to go for the first discussion. Somehow, I thought it began on the 1st, so I'm doing alright.
Katy wrote: "I'm well on schedule for this! I've got another 50 pages to go for the first discussion. Somehow, I thought it began on the 1st, so I'm doing alright."Excellent! We'll be waiting for your wise comments as soon as the discussion threads are posted on Wednesday (or Tuesday evening).
"Wise comments?" You will be waiting a long, long time.
Lily wrote: "http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...
The above is an absolutely delightful interview of Robert Fagles by Patricia Storace that appeared in The Pa..."
It took me awile to get to it, but I enjoyed very much reading the article. Thanks for posting the link.
The above is an absolutely delightful interview of Robert Fagles by Patricia Storace that appeared in The Pa..."
It took me awile to get to it, but I enjoyed very much reading the article. Thanks for posting the link.
Oh, and thanks, Eman, for the link to the review of the Mitchell. I would have to say the Doloneia is not my fave stuff -- and has the misfortune of following the great Book IX. But somehow Homer without the epithets is a little bizarre.I think I'm going to do a reread of Lattimore with peeks at Pope.
Katy wrote: ""Wise comments?" You will be waiting a long, long time."I beg leave to differ.
Adelle wrote: "...but I enjoyed very much reading the article. Thanks for posting the link. ..."Glad you enjoyed it, Adelle.
One of the opening phrases turned out to be equally applicable to the 91-year old woman whose memorial service I attended today, and I tried to paraphrase it for her daughter-in-law:
"...His manners are fine in the way that Americans, having not yet evolved a word, still inappropriately describe as courtly, a word that misses the lack of ostentation and the deliberate grace that are at the heart of democratic elegance."
Lily wrote: "What does one interpret those words to mean? E.g., "original English poem"? What is the significance of Dryden's translation (of The Aeneid)? Paradise Lost, of course, is an original English poem. Is Pope's rendition something rather independent of the original Iliad, rather than a translation per se? "I don't know about Pope, but Dryden had the terribly bad habit of 'rewriting' and 'adapting' other books. He rewrote Paradise Lost, Canterbury Tales and several Shakespeare plays and made them structurally simpler, less tragic and often added rhymes (especially in Milton). Dryden did a lot of the same things when translating The Aeneid. It's written in horrid sing-song-y heroic couplets which have nothing of the musicality of the blank verse original, it's full of inaccuracies and omissions (Dryden tells us in the introduction that an poetic inaccurate version is better than an unpoetic one truthful to the text!) and an excessive emphasis on politics (which the original text doesn't have). It gets to the point where Dryden's translation starts being regarded as an 'original poem' (although Dryden borrowed large section of text from older English translation without giving credit) because it's such an unfaithful translation you can't read it as a Virgil translation.
Well, the 18th century had a sensibility we don't share and it felt perfectly comfortable "civilizing" older texts. For most of the 18th King Lear was (often? always?) performed with a changed ending in which Cordelia survived and married Edgar.
Lily wrote: "Is Pope's rendition something rather independent of the original Iliad, rather than a translation per se?"
I started reading Pope last night. I don't know enough Greek any more to judge it against the Greek original, but when comparing it with other translations such as Lattimore and Butler, I'm finding it often fairly far from a close translation. I won't get into specifics here, but will wait until we get to discussing the specific books.
But I will say that at times I think he captures the emotions and motivations better than some more literal translations do. It's not really a re-write, it's a lot closer to the original than that, but he has taken what compared with other translations seems to be some liberties.
On the other hand, I am enjoying a lot more than I had expected to. I started reading is as a duty, because I thought I ought to be familiar with that famous translation. I kept reading because it was quite enjoyable to read.
BTW, here is Johnston's comment on Pope's translation:"Pope is the only major English poetical genius to tackle a full translation of Homer’s epic, and the result is, without any doubt, the most famous, popular, and financially successful rendition of Homer into English. Pope’s translation, in fact, became a major English poem in his own age and was, more than anything else, responsible for spreading the popularity of and familiarity with Homer’s verse. If one of the major tasks of a translator is to make the ancient poem live for his contemporaries in a very different age, then Pope clearly achieved this more successfully than any other translator of Homer. This feat is all the more remarkable because the eighteenth century was an age which, in many respects, had little taste for the vision of warrior life in the Iliad (disparaging remarks about the poem were common). It is, of course, easy to criticize Pope’s liberties with Homer’s text (which are considerable)—the most famous comment is the gibe attributed to the great Classical scholar Richard Bentley, “It is a very pretty poem, Mr. Pope, but you must not call it Homer”—to question just how suitable the heroic couplet style is for rendering Homeric hexameters, and to raise other objections about the style. On the other hand, given the influence and continuing popularity of the poem, it is difficult to disagree with Dr. Johnson’s evaluation: “It is certainly the noblest version of poetry which the world has ever seen; and its publication must therefore be considered as one of the great events in the annals of learning” (Life of Pope)."
http://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/homer...
I finished book 2, today. And, I have to say that I really, really like my translation. (The prose translation by Martin Hammond.) It's very readable, but doesn't have any hokey linguistic anachronisms.
I think I'll be joining in again ... I have the Fagles translation as well.
Rosemary wrote: "I think I'll be joining in again ... I have the Fagles translation as well."Excellent.
I'm just checking in here since this is my first discussion with this group and I want to get updates. Checking to see what translation I have...
Juliette wrote: "I'm just checking in here since this is my first discussion with this group and I want to get updates. Checking to see what translation I have..."Welcome. The first thing to know about discussing with this group, is that silence is NOT golden! Post your thoughts freely; maybe you don't think they're very astute or insightful, but it usually turns out that an idea will be an ah-ha moment for somebody. If you don't understand a point or reference, don't be shy to ask; if you don't understand you're probably not alone, and others will appreciate your having asked it (and you'll give somebody else the pleasure of answering the question and feeling good about sharing information).
We're a very kind and helpful group, but we can't be kind or helpful to you if you only lurk and don't say anything!
Again, I'm going to try getting through an entire book with this great group. While, I have taught an abridged version of The Iliad, I have never read the complete text, and I am familiar enough with it to know I will get more out of it with a discussion group.
Gayle wrote: "Again, I'm going to try getting through an entire book with this great group. While, I have taught an abridged version of The Iliad, I have never read the complete text, and I am familiar enough wi..."Glad to have you and your background teaching the Iliad (even if in an abridged form) with us.
Okay, I read the first book and I'm going to read the second book tonight. I'm reading the Iliad for the first time and my knowledge of it is pretty basic. I know I'm going to be learning a lot from this reading group, I just hope that I am able to contribute to the discussion.I liked the first book and the words seem to flow off the pages. The only difficulty I found with the reading was keeping all of the names straight.
I have the Samuel Butler translation.
I finished Book Two last night. This is my first time reading The Iliad as well. I am reading the Lattimore translation, but the discussion of the Pope translation sparked my interest so I may have to get my hands on a copy just to compare. I'm looking forward to the discussion on Wednesday!
Lacy, I'm starting to get used to the names. I think I only care about the ones that sound familiar to me, as I figure those are probably the important ones. I just have trouble remember who is the son of whom.And, I pretty much skimmed all that part about who was leading the guys from where with however many boats. I'm pretty sure they won't be on the midterm. ;)
Katy wrote: "Lacy, I'm starting to get used to the names. ... I just have trouble remember who is the son of whom."For a first time reader, I think you can pretty much let that go unless your translation only calls people by their "son of" names. Lineage was very important to the Greeks, but I don't think is all that important for us. Or you could make a cheat sheet of the names if you wanted to.
The only two I think you really need to worry about are that Achilles is the son of Pelus (and of the goddess-nymph Thetis) and Agamemnon is the son of Atreus. (His brother, Menelaus, is also a son of Atreus, but when the term "the son of Atreus" is used it always means the older son, Agamemnon.)
Everyman wrote: "Welcome. The first thing to kno..."
Thanks for the newbe info. This is my first read with this group and of The Iliad. I just downloaded the Fagle on my Kindle and have checked out the Pope from my library. Will start tomorrow and decide then which to go with.
Everyman wrote: "...The only two I think you really need to worry about are that Achilles is the son of Pelus (and of the goddess-nymph Thetis) and Agamemnon is the son of Atreus...."Depending on the translation you are using, it may be helpful to realize that the god Apollo can be referred to as the "son of Zeus by Lêto". I got hung up on that one in the Fitzgerald translation for awhile this time. :-(
(This probably belongs in references, but since we are talking about her, here is a link on Lêto:
http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanisLet...
And here on Apollo:
http://www.theoi.com/Olympios/Apollon...)
Everyman wrote: "Katy wrote: "Lacy, I'm starting to get used to the names. ... I just have trouble remember who is the son of whom."For a first time reader, I think you can pretty much let that go unless your tra..."
And Atrides is the plural for sons of "Atreus"
Something else that tripped me up my first time through: Achaeans, Argives, and Danaans. They're the same people: the Greeks.
Gayle wrote: And Atrides is the plural for sons of "Atreus"
And on the far, far, outer edges of the topic...House Atreides (from the Dune series) claims descent from Atreus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulus_A...
And on the far, far, outer edges of the topic...House Atreides (from the Dune series) claims descent from Atreus.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paulus_A...
Speaking of the Atrides, I'm joining in on this for multiple reasons:1) It's a new year and every year I swear I'll read more
2) It's a shame I haven't read this before
3) I'm actually writing a long poem [long enough to be an epic, but lacking some of the frills that defines it] about the children [and grandchildren and great-grandchildren] of Pelops, and the Trojan War and Agamemnon will naturally play an important part, so I've got to read this and the Posthomerica sooner rather than later.
I sincerely hope I'll be able to stick to this and not give up like I did with Plato's Republic >.< especially since I start an online class in about a week.
Wootwoot! I'm excited though :]
You can do it!
AND...you'll be glad you did.
1) Since you've been swearing every year, this is the year to make good that promise to yourself,
2) It IS a shame you haven't read it before. I'm almost in the same situation. The copy I had read some years back was annodated. Now I'm seeing what I was missing,
3) What a cool undertaking: to write a long poem.
AND...you'll be glad you did.
1) Since you've been swearing every year, this is the year to make good that promise to yourself,
2) It IS a shame you haven't read it before. I'm almost in the same situation. The copy I had read some years back was annodated. Now I'm seeing what I was missing,
3) What a cool undertaking: to write a long poem.
Speaking of "epics."
I've started listening to the Great Courses, Professor Elizabeth Vandiver, (someone earlier in the discussion...Everyman?... had mentioned this course).
She says that by '"epic," the Greeks simply meant any long poem in one particular meter, dactylic hexameter" ... And ... "Because of Greece's influence on later Western culture, the Iliadand the Odyssey served as models for later epics. The term "epic" thus came to mean narrative poems dealing with gods and heroes, and often associated with either war or adventure"
I've started listening to the Great Courses, Professor Elizabeth Vandiver, (someone earlier in the discussion...Everyman?... had mentioned this course).
She says that by '"epic," the Greeks simply meant any long poem in one particular meter, dactylic hexameter" ... And ... "Because of Greece's influence on later Western culture, the Iliadand the Odyssey served as models for later epics. The term "epic" thus came to mean narrative poems dealing with gods and heroes, and often associated with either war or adventure"
Thank you Everyman, Lily, Gayle, Thomas, and Adelle. Those are great tips! I think that once the discussion starts I might reread the first two books again with my little cheat sheet!
A reminder to regulars and info for first time participants: I will be posting a thread for each book of the Iliad, but the discussion is cumulative. That is, in the Book 6 discussion you don't need to limit yourself to just things in Book 6, but can discuss anything up to and through Book 6 -- that is, anything relevant to Books 1 through 6. This, I think, better allows development of ideas; if for example you're making a post on the gods in the Book 6 thread you can cite passages, events, etc. from any of the earlier books. If a point is very specific to a book, it's often most helpful to post it in that book thread even if I've posted later books, but it's your choice.
The only rule is not to post about things still to come in the reading.
BTW: the National Weather Service has posted a Wind Advisory for strong winds for the next 48 hours. It's quite possible that we will lose power here, and I will be offline for awhile. So for the other moderators, if I seem to be absent at a critical moment, please fill in.
Lacy wrote: "Thank you Everyman, Lily, Gayle, Thomas, and Adelle. Those are great tips! I think that once the discussion starts I might reread the first two books again with my little cheat sheet!"\
Yes, lots of good info, I second the "Thank you". I was having a hard time with epithats at first and Zeus has so many different names my head started spinning, but I'll get it eventually.
Patrice wrote: "Sounds as though a sacrifice of a fatted lamb to Aeolus is in order!"Or at least the thigh bones thereof, wrapped in fat.
If this group does nothing else but bring propitiatory sacrifices to the relevant Greek gods, it will not have been in vain.
Bill wrote: "So far, I'm finding Fagles better with The Odyssey and returning to Lattimore. I'm curious -- has anyone tried the new available in hardcover only version by Stephen Mitchell?"I leafed through it in the bookstore and liked it even more than the Fagles (which I like a great deal). I thought it was as 'poetic' as the Fagles but made clearer sense. However, since I owned the Fagles already, I wasn't going to pay for another, really quite expensive, volume.
My translation is not poetic at all. I have the Samuel Butler translation for Barnes and Noble Classics. After reading the discussions I have found that I would probably enjoy one of the more poetic translations for the next time that I read this. Does anyone have one they recommend to a person who just found literature as a hobby two years ago? My education and training, before becoming a mom, was business and numbers! So I am out of my element! I've always enjoyed reading, but the classics are somewhat new territory for me. I did enjoy reading The Canterbury Tales so any suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks!
Lacy wrote: "My translation is not poetic at all. I have the Samuel Butler translation for Barnes and Noble Classics. After reading the discussions I have found that I would probably enjoy one of the more poet..."Lattimore, Fitzgerald, and Fagles are three that are still quite popular. Pope is magnificent but not for everyone (his is available free on the Internet to try out; there's a link elsewhere; the others are still copyrighted so aren't free but libraries either have or can get them). Personally, I would avoid Mitchell since his is not the full Iliad; some people like Lombardo, but I'm not one of them.
Classics and the Western Canon
Books mentioned in this topic
The Aeneid (other topics)The Canterbury Tales (other topics)
Paradise Lost (other topics)
In addition to the weekly discussion topics, there will be topics for background and for resources.
Since the original audience was very familiar with the basic story and characters, including the divinities, as far as postings in the background thread are concerned, I will not consider background on the Trojan War and its origins, the divinities and their roles in the pantheon, the lineage of characters, particularly those one of whose parents was a god or goddess, and similar background information to be spoilers, as long as they don’t refer specifically to events in portions of the Iliad not yet reached by the discussion.
Readers who do not want to be exposed to any of this information should avoid the background thread, but I think this information will help readers, particularly first time readers, of the Iliad get more out of their reading, just as a reader 2,500 years from now would make more sense of a modern novel if they had some idea what references to the Vietnam War, Watergate, the Republican and Democratic parties, and other matters of ancient (to them) history meant to the authors who were mentioning those events in their work.