Classics and the Western Canon discussion
Discussion - Homer, The Iliad
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Iliad Reading Schedule
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Thank you Everyman and Lily. I'm going to see what my library has and if they have one available I will read it and the Sumuel Butler translation simultaneously.
I think Richmond Lattimore is the best writing. Fagels is sometimes clearer. I go between the two. Both are available as Kindle Books and paperbacks.ALWAYS be careful of buying translations in Barnes & Noble classics. English language books are fine. But to save money they use translations that are old and in the public domain for which they don't pay royalties. In some cases they use very old, very outdated translations.
Okay, I picked up a new version from the library! I already like this one way better. I hope to get caught up by the 17th!
Lacy wrote: "Okay, I picked up a new version from the library! I already like this one way better. I hope to get caught up by the 17th!"Which translator?
It is contemporary verse by Robert Fitzgerald. I have reread book 1, book 2, and part of 3. I should be caught up soon!
Lacy wrote: "It is contemporary verse by Robert Fitzgerald. I have reread book 1, book 2, and part of 3. I should be caught up soon!"Lacy -- these may interest you about Fitzgerald:
http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F...
I found the Paris Review article a bit verbose, but worth skimming, especially for the comments on translating and Fitzgerald's contacts with other poets and writers, like Eliot and Pound and Flannery O'Connor, as well as his comments about recent poets.
Lacy wrote: "It is contemporary verse by Robert Fitzgerald. I have reread book 1, book 2, and part of 3. I should be caught up soon!"That's a translation I like. Good choice.
His Odyssey is even better, when you ever get to reading that!
That is good to hear! I have Odyssey and The Aeneid, which I read in an article that Lily posted above that Fitzgerald translated as well. I just need to find them in my piles to see what traslation they are. I never thought to look into that when I got them!
I plan to read Odyssey one of these days!
Yes, it used to be Lattimore's Iliad and Fitzgerald's Odyssey when I was in school. Fagels is relatively new, but I like his Odyssey.I don't know anything about The Aeneid which is very different being Latin, composed by a single author and much later in history. I'd be curious if any classicists know the best translations.
Lily wrote: "Lacy wrote: "It is contemporary verse by Robert Fitzgerald. I have reread book 1, book 2, and part of 3. I should be caught up soon!"Lacy -- these may interest you about Fitzgerald:
http://www..."
Thank you Lily. The article was wordy, but interesting.
Lacy wrote: "Thank you Lily. The article was wordy, but interesting...."Lacy -- hopefully, I had warned you. I found it the same.
Adelle wrote: "Speaking of "epics.""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" "
What I find interesting is how many of the epics from other cultures that were originally transmitted orally, have the same if not similar conventions as the Greek epics. Beowulf--from the Norse tradition, Epic of Son-Jara--from Africa are just two that have striking resemblances in form.
Gayle wrote: "....striking resemblances in form. ..."Are there particular resemblances in form besides those that cause us to label each of them epics to which you refer? I know some interesting work has been done on what are the characteristics of a long poem such that it is readily learned and remembered by bards. It has been awhile, but as I recall some of that was with modern bards who do similar performances today.
Lily wrote: "Gayle wrote: "....striking resemblances in form. ..."Are there particular resemblances in form besides those that cause us to label each of them epics to which you refer? I know some interesting..."
I basically taught 13 conventions and characteristics of a Greek Epic--though scholars will quibble about the number, or group them differently. Some pertain to form, some to content, some to literary conventions . A lot of the crossover between cultures has to do with form (for ease of memorization) and content.
I can't find it now, but I was reading through a lot of the comments earlier this evening and in terms of the "off topic" discussion that happened in one of the threads regarding the broken down reading schedule, I wanted to say, for what it's worth, that it has been very helpful to me as a first time reader. I know many others have read the work before and might prefer a different approach, but I'm getting so much out of it doing it this way (and I can manage this along with a couple of other books at the same time, which is nice.) Thank you Everyman!
Iliad lovers, may I call your attention to my 2012 book, Becoming Achilles: Child-sacrifice, War, and Misrule in the Iliad and Beyond, in Gregory Nagy's series with Lexington books.
I meant to add that the brief book talk on my site should give you an idea of whether the book is of interest: http://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/beco...
Lattimore's Ilad is my fave, by the way.
Richard wrote: "I meant to add that the brief book talk on my site should give you an idea of whether the book is of interest: http://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/beco..."I read your description. The point of view looks interesting. The nurturing aspects of human nature don't seem to flourish in a patriarchy. It seems to get more complicated the more patriarchal the society becomes.
Theresa wrote: "Richard wrote: "I meant to add that the brief book talk on my site should give you an idea of whether the book is of interest: http://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/beco......"Theresa wrote: "Richard wrote: "I meant to add that the brief book talk on my site should give you an idea of whether the book is of interest: http://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/beco......"
Thank you for your comment. I see the patriarchal patterns reflected in the Iliad and Odyssey unevenly distributed along a continuum, with the Odyssey's Odysseus and Penelope at one end, but heavily weighted toward Achilles-Thetis-Peleus/Agamemnon pattern at the other. The latter configuration excels at producing warriors but is short on metis (cunning intelligence or wisdom) that are signal qualities of Hesiod's Zeus, his daughter Athena, and her protege, Odysseus.
Richard wrote: "Theresa wrote: "Richard wrote: "I meant to add that the brief book talk on my site should give you an idea of whether the book is of interest: http://pages.shanti.virginia.edu/beco......"Hmm I always thought of Athena as a father's daughter. She is a patron/protector of human males, not females. She doesn't represent the nurturing quality to me, but with that head of medusa thing on her shield, she does seem to have appropriated some sort of feminine wisdom (possibly to make up for the lack of having had a nurturing mother figure). Pure speculation on my part. I'm no expert, just a curious reader.
As in "But the day will come when Father, well I know, calls me his darling gray-eyed girl again" for example?
Hard to argue with that.
For a mother with with metis I might look at Penelope in the Odyssey. She's certainly got game when it comes to metis, but her maternal protectiveness toward her almost-grown son is also evident.
It is hard to find any wholesome models for the nurturing side of human nature in greek mythology. There is Gaia but then again she incited her son to castrate his father Uranus for having hid the children from her (or in her). Chronos - time - was the only one up to the challenge of destroying the old man. I'd like to think that the furies have some wisdom for us that will restore our connection to the earth and all things nurturing...but I haven't figured out what. Perhaps we will find the secrets of good nurturing in the mythologies of some peaceful Indigenous peoples of the world? Not all indigenous peoples are peaceful of course.
Are you familiar with Jean Liedloff's book "The Continuum Concept"?
Thetis was a good mom indeed :)But Demeter! Of course. Goddess of life, death, and fertility. And her poor daughter Peresphone - doomed to spend half her existence in the underworld. Yes, it corresponds to winter and spring in the northern hemisphere but it also (in my mind) corresponds to the unfortunate split of the female ideal that seems to have occurred sometime around the 13th or 14th century when the Virgin Mary became an elevated symbol of divine motherhood and the terrible centuries of witch hunts - the demonization of the female ideal - began to grip the western imagination.
You two have hit upon perhaps the most controversial aspect of the book described above, which concerns the mothering of heroes as part of a broader intergenerational pattern in which mothers favor sons over fathers and fathers favor impressionable daughters over formidable wives. In it I looks at disturbing myths about Thetis's and Demeter's rearing of hero sons that are downplayed in the Iliad. In light of research into mother-infant attachment, these myths link the mothering of heroes to a pattern of destructive father-daughter and mother-son alliances that replicate themselves over generations. In a twist corresponding to attachment research, such destructive parent-child liaisons tend to be idealized as superior to ordinary parenting. Hence our understandable impression of Demeter and Thetis as superior mothers. As the mythology section of the book talk linked to above indicates, It is precisely in myths of Thetis and Demeter mothering heroes that the correspondences to infant-caregiver attachment research and theory are most precise and illuminating. So I am inclined to agree with Theresa's initial comments that instances of truly nurturant parenting are rare to nonexistent in Homeric epic and its background myths and that this is connected to the honor-obsessed, warlike nature of the society reflected in the Homeric poems.
Richard wrote: "You two have hit upon perhaps the most controversial aspect of the book described above, which concerns the mothering of heroes as part of a broader intergenerational pattern in which mothers favor..."I can certainly see your point about Demeter not being a good "mother" to the human baby boy that was in her charge. I also agree that making human males into heroes creates problems. I still maintain that Demeter was a good mother to her daughter Peresphone. Its not like she abandoned her; its not like she sold her to Hades in order to gain advantage for a son as mothers sometimes do to their daughters. On the contrary, Demeter is the Goddess of fertility and nurturing, she rescues Peresphone (and to my way of thinking she rescues womanhood) from Hades for at least half the year. Despite her efforts, women are still associated with evil, the devil, dark arts, witchcraft. Fortunately, the dark void is also a place where creativity takes root, where life takes root, where ideas are planted. These things don't fester there though, they come into their own in the spring and are nurtured.
I suspect you are correct that Thetis made her son's life unnecessarily complicated with the business of trying to initiate him into the world of the divine gods. I don't know this story as well as the others. I haven't read the Iliad, I know the story and have read the Odyssey, Homeric Hymns, Hesiod, as well as assorted Greek tragedies.
Do you think the metis is a useful example of child rearing? Through the relationship of Odysseus and Penelope I see how Metis can show us the way out of patriarchy toward fraternity, but I don't see metis as a particularly nurturing quality. I thought that was Demeter's role?
Theresa wrote: "Richard wrote: "You two have hit upon perhaps the most controversial aspect of the book described above, which concerns the mothering of heroes as part of a broader intergenerational pattern in whi..."I've mostly been interested in Demeter in relation to the mother of heroes theme, and I argue it's no coincidence that the abduction of Persephone frames the story of Demeter's attempt to immortalize Demophoon. As for "selling" Persephone, that's of course what her father, Zeus, does to placate Hades, and Demeter is furious with him for it. Still in my book I interpret that episode in relation to the mother of heroes theme. But there is a lot I don't know about Demeter, and your take on her and Persephone is interesting. Regarding metis, I would agree that it has at most a tangential relationship to nurture. In the Theogony the metis of Zeus is perhaps the wisdom not to try to prevent the birth of or devour your children, i.e., not to repeat the mistakes of your predecessors. Maybe, in Hesiod, it is more about allowing children and peers to develop and take their honored place in society than it is actually to foster that development. Yet the stratagems that defeat Ouranos and Kronos are maternal in origin, they counteract attempts to prevent the birth and development of children, and Metis herself is a goddess. So there would seem to be some link to maternal nurture.
Classics and the Western Canon
Books mentioned in this topic
The Aeneid (other topics)The Canterbury Tales (other topics)
Paradise Lost (other topics)
Although I have the first three Eman mentions and recently did the free download of Pope to my Kindle, I would encourage checking out more than one version from the library and comparing a favorite passage and perhaps a not-so-favorite one. I was like you back in 2007 when Laurel and Eman encouraged me through my first serious read of The Iliad. As people here probably get sick of hearing me say, my particular fun is to listen to one translation while following with another. Fitzgerald and Fagles or Fitzgerald and Lattimore work particularly well together; I haven't tried other pairings. I get clues as to things that must surely have been in the original Greek and sometimes guesses as to where original words might have a range of meanings or the context could be interpreted slightly differently by different hearers/readers.