Beginner to philosophy and classic literature here...

Beginner to philosophy and classic literature here. I'm wondering what are some of your must-reads for introductions to topics like these?

Long, complex, and usual "hard to follow" books are okay.

Other urls found in this thread:

wwnorton.com/college/english/nawest/content/overview/ancient.htm
plato.stanford.edu/
iep.utm.edu/
twitter.com/NSFWRedditVideo

First, learn to read again. Check out How to Read a Book (Adler). Next, don't read primary texts in the entirety. Instead, check out the survey books that undergraduates use. A good start is the Norton Anthology of Western Literature: wwnorton.com/college/english/nawest/content/overview/ancient.htm

>have to read a book to learn how to read a book

lol this old meme good one user haha yeah
>assuming OP doesn't possess some semblance of literacy to learn new skills from a book

Seconding this despite 2nd poster's protesting.

Also for skimming,
plato.stanford.edu/
iep.utm.edu/

>philosophy
From the looks of things I'm guessing that you're looking to go through "personal philosophy" and not hard phil. If not, don't go for "must reads"; go through cannons. Your reading list should be structured like a syllabus if you're going to read about philosophy outside of novels.

-The Iliad and Odyssey (No Fagles)
-Plato 5 trial dialogues + Republic
-Aristotle Metaphysics and Ethics
-Thucydides or Herodotus
-The Orestria and Oedipus Cycles

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btw there's nothing wrong with reading companion guides written by academics
currently reading an introduction to Epicurus, pretty neat stuff

this

ignore these fools

lit doesn't have an official guide anymore as it was shut down by the FCC but start with the greeks

>No Fagles

Why tho bud. Fagles is dramatic and fun as fuck to read

Lattimore is absolutely terrible and Fagles is too easy to digest. It attracts plebs. Pope's '''''''translation'''''''' is another poem entirely. All three shouldn't be read unless you are a pleb.

I am also wondering this. Is it so bad that it's easier to read? Is it oversimplified?

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It's popular and fun so people hate it here to seem cool and enlightened

The Iliad and Odyssey should only be read with the ancient greek reconstructed pronounciation by a Greek man, everything else is folly. I only read the Illiad out loud in the morning and the Odyssey at night in varying pronounciations of Greek. Sometimes I use Aeolian sometimes Ionian because this is my level. You can't even fathom how good my Greek is.

just how lacking in intellectual pride does someone have to be in order to unironically read a book teaching you how to read books without being infuriated by the insult it implies

>I want to read something
>Long, hard and complex
How about the fucking sticky?

It's popular because it is simplified contemporary "verse" that borders on prose. Literally the pleb version, for such an ancient book with so many translations each with actual merits you'd have to be a fool to pick Fagles.

>It's popular and fun so people hate it here to seem cool and enlightened
And if that's what you actual believe then you can't discern good verse and shouldn't be offering your opinions

>Man vs whale
Triggered

>And if that's what you actual believe then you can't discern good verse and shouldn't be offering your opinions
Because it's only your opinion that matters after all.