Veeky Forums says to start with the greeks....
Why not start with
>kesh temple hymn,
>instructions of shuruppak,
>the maxims of ptahhotep,
>enheduanna's hymns,
and if those are too obscure, why not start with
>epic of gilgamesh,
>debate between bird and fish,
>lament for ur,
..
There are so many other works before the trojan war cycle.
Are you plebs?
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You really don't need them if you're going to focus on contemporary works. You would need them if you were going to focus on ancient texts as your primary interest.
Because the Greeks provided the foundation for essentially all Western thought that follows. Egyptian / Sumerian stuff is fascinating but it doesn't have direct influence until much later (after the Victorian period it becomes of interest). We just don't think like them in a meaningful way. I read stuff like that in the same way I read Chinese literature. That is, rarely, and out of curiosity
I would argue start with the Old Testament, then the Classics
Because the Greeks influenced the rest of western canon and get referenced all the time
garden of eden and countless other elements of the old testament are taken from earlier works.
Iliad and Odyssey draw ideas from earlier works too..
The only quite distinct are the vedas, but even these influenced mesopotamic literature, and indirectly the bible.
They may not be as lengthy as works from the classical antiquity (first millenium bc), but are very meaningful
This is largely what I was getting across here.
The point is that, as Westerners, if you are going to study western work (literally anything from Marx, to Hegel, to Nietzsche, to Wittgenstein, to Hobbes, to Machiavelli, etc etc.) the basis is contained within the Greeks. Sure, Egyptian and Sumerian work is interesting, but it won't provide you with a foundation for future study of western works like the Greeks will.
why don’t you want to expand your horizons and read works that aren’t so much influenced by western thought
It is useful, but as our life is finite, we can only read so much. Sure, it would be cool to read, but priorities, man.
Agreed.
Have a confession, have badly neglected the Romans. How severe is this? Beyond poetry, I just don't feel like its impacted me that badly thus far
Yeah honestly me too. I don't *think* it is that bad.