Start with the Greeks Book Club: Iliad

Plebs get in here right now or gtfo.

Managing two groups is a big responsibility and alot of work. Combining the groups is advisable unless you are a NEET and have time to keep the threads updated.

Don't worry brah, I got it

Bumping for the Greeks

Can we agree upon two books a day out of the Iliad and to start tomorrow?

Make a schedule you mega faggots.

seconded

Starting on the 2nd?

This. OP you have to be a leader and get the ball rolling at least in the beginning.

I don't see the need for a schedule. We simply read 2 books out of the Iliad for 12 consecutive days, in chronological order.

Did you guys expect break days or something? If so, let me know.

I'm in the War and Peace, Count of Monte Cristo, and short story groups. Will the schedule be slow enough that I can join in, or is my load already heavy enough?

I'm down.

Anyone interested in starting a slack?

docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/16at7Sdl9j4meAsjQ2LscKc9qBnAigucKwTUsENzrmDE/edit?usp=sharing

You're a bit overworked, then. If you can manage another 50~100 pages of verse a day, you'll be golden

hello George

sort of highlights how unnecessary a schedule is, we might all have different editions so page numbers will be different

...

>average Veeky Forums user

Veeky Forums hair

Well, I'm in.

lit-senpai noticed me desu

we reading the Lattimore translation?

What are we going to read after the romans?

Im going to be reading the Samuel Butler translation.

more greeks

does not matter
who knows. I doubt half the people who will take part will remain after just the Iliad.

Probably skipping to Dante and Chaucer.

there is no need to skip

we could read beowulf, the song of roland and el cid

still, i don't think we will make it that far

If someone is downloading/buying I say we just refer them to lattimore if they ask what translation.

Here is a schedule with dates which I think is helpful to have. I know it's a piece of shit but it's the best I can do until the third.

Does anyone want to start a slack for this group?

That way we can organize and centralize everything in the slack chat.

I really want to do a book club for the year

unfamiliar with the platform but ill join and learn if someone who knows more wants to start it up

slack is like a shitty commercial version of irc, just set up a channel on a public network instead of using some gay proprietary shit

I made this

thanks. Will serve as our image here on out

I finished the Iliad and Odyssey recently so I won't be reading, but will take part in discussions.
How many anons will be reading for the first time?

My first time, but I've been looking for an excuse to for a while.

First time reading the Iliad.
I've read the Odyssey many times, but one more re-read sounds fun too.

So uh, why read The Iliad before Edith Hamilton's Mythology and before The First Poets?

Is that what you read before the Iliad? You skipped Ancient Greece: a political social and cultural history?

For anyone worried about not having enough background on the Iliad I recommend reading this. It's pretty much all you need.
pages.ucsd.edu/~dkjordan/arch/iliad/IliadGuide01.html

>invent the Start with the Greeks meme
>everyone is actually doing it
>mfw

haha now theyre stuck reading timeless literature, suckers

kek

gottem!

>I finished the Iliad and Odyssey recently so I won't be reading, but will take part in discussions.
Same here, and I'm reading the Aeneid

I'm quite interested in this, are we centralising discussion here or on a slack or IRC channel or something?

I tank it should stay here, no need to split the discussion.

Alrighty, well I only own the Fagles translations, but I'll join in.

fagles here too bruh

who here superior pope translation?

So when are we starting? Can we put together a list of everything we will read?

Greetings fellow scholars! I recently purchased a copy of the Iliad to sit next to my odyssey, and have been waiting for the right time and impetus to delve into it. As such I shall be joining ye on this merry venture!

Have we agreed on which translation to use?

any

I'm about two thirds of the way through the Iliad, I'll maybe try and time it so I can read the Odyssey alongside you guys. Where are you going after theogony? I was planning to mainly focus on philosophy after finishing homer.

>not starting with Mythology by Edith Hamilton

>Where are you going after theogony?
I wouldn't worry too much about this, when we don't even know if these threads will survive the Catalogue of Ships...

That said, personally I recommend these threads to go for the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, there are more myths there (and the mysteries!) and they were a huge influence on the Aeneid, particularly Euripides, later plays and the writing of characters in general.

The are required reading especially if Shakespeare is supposed to be the long term objective.

Plato references the tragedies here and there and Aristotle talks about them in Poetics.

I'm in.

i'm in. hopefully some good supp material reccs sprout out while we're reading :^)

Awesome. I still have my copies of Illiad and Odyssey from when I was in High School. I'm in. So if I'm reading the thread right are we starting today then?

>Reading female authors

>he didn't start with a brief history of Ancient Greece.

Seriously we should at least read Mythology by Edith Hamilton first. It's short and has the basis for all the the Greek works that follow. Even my public high school had us read it before starting the Iliad and the Odyssey.

Ah yes, that famous Greek author Edith Hamilton. For thousands of years no-one could read the Iliad until she wrote Mythology.

Seriously, if you're worried about myths (very little of which are touched on in Homer) then just use Wikipedia.

Dude, Homer is incoherent without the mythological backdrop. It's key to understanding literally everything. It's not just allusions. It's archetypal.

So has anyone read Book One and Two yet? Even though the roll call of the army is kind of boring I have to imagine that if I lived in ancient Greece it would have been cool to hear about what your town contributed to the war effort. In a small way it connected you all the way back to the Age of Heroes.

I think I'm going to skip The Iliad so I can read Mythology by Edith Hamilton, and then rejoin the group for The Odyssey.

Should I have all the shit about the leaders of both armies memorized? You know, the last 20 pages or so of book 2

To be honest, I skimmed that because I don't care at all.

No its not important to a modern reader. It was really so people listening could be like "yeah! So and so came from our town"

>Dude, Homer is incoherent without the mythological backdrop.
Yes, if you're fucking retarded. And even then, there's a thing called the internet which has all the information you need.

...so you're saying someone should read something else (on the internet) before the Illiad. Thanks for making my point for me. Dolt.

See
Plus doesn't Edit Hamilton write about the Iliad and the Odyssey in Mythology?
I read the Iliad having read only the ucsd introduction linked above.
Maybe I missed a few things by not knowing all the background, but starting a group with Mythology by Edith Hamilton is probably not going to bring in readers.

Bad version, this one is better

When are we starting?

I just got the Stephen Mitchell translation from the library, is that good?

>When are we starting?
We already started. In this thread:

thanks