Decided to fall for the memes and start with the Greeks by reading this (exact same translation as pic related)

Decided to fall for the memes and start with the Greeks by reading this (exact same translation as pic related)

What am I in for?

Other urls found in this thread:

rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/Aristophanes/aristophanes.htm
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I'm on page 400 of the same translation. The Iliad can be extremely repetitive and drag on at times but there are sections that absolutely blew me away. If you become frustrated after reading the same phrase or simile for the 500th time just keep in mind that this was a poem that probably had to be memorized and was first "published" in 700BC. I'm glad I picked it up and I hope you enjoy it as much as I currently am, OP.

Boring liters of blood

Dank meme's and divine schemes

I bought it a few days ago, up to book 7. It's interesting, but really shows it's age. The basic story isn't so bad but there are a lot of parts that are boring as shit, it also has a bad habit of having one character say something then order it to be told to someone else and then repeating that same passage of text word for word. I think probably to give the impression that it's a word for word retelling of a historical event.

Achilles is a massive beta as well. Chad steals his gf and he goes into the sea and weeps like a bitch til his mom comes and hugs him. Seriously.

>Americans reading epic poems as novels
my holy keks

Please enlighten the people in this thread on the proper method of reading

This

fucking lmfao

That doesn't invalidate any criticism that has been made though?

start off by ignore these people unless being a pseud is your goal

Greek tragedy is the pinnacle of art my boy, nowhere else but in The Iliad will you find a sufficient emphasis on the equalibrium of metaphysical components which permeate clashing human endeavors.

Read it closely, try to understand the depiction of war which The Iliad presents and don't be like these people
who only read it to clear out their backlog, enjoy.

It's boring as fuck, man, just skip to the Odyssey.

I think Homer is much better if studied at school. If your schools don't offer that opportunity, I guess the best thing for you is to study it online and read the best or most important passages. Reading the whole Iliad (especially the way you do, with the rapid flow you apply to novels) is a fucking waste of time to be honest.

>nowhere else but in The Iliad will you find a sufficient emphasis on the equalibrium of metaphysical components which permeate clashing human endeavors.
You are the epitome of a pseud.

>Trying to appear as though you're more intelligent than other people because you 'got it'
Fuckin hell, just kill yourself you poseur

>u-u used words u are the pseud!
please explain to me what my post implied

>you're more intelligent than other people because you 'got it'
It's not that I 'got it' it's that you didn't get it and decided to voice your opinion about it and that makes you a poseur baby.

>nowhere else but in The Iliad will you find a sufficient emphasis on the equalibrium of metaphysical components which permeate clashing human endeavors.
shut up fucking pseud and leave the internet

Yes it does, because their criticism is about how the text didn't fulfill their expectations when said expectations were flawed from the beginning.

I barely read any books in American Highschool, we mostly read poems written by negroes and women though I know British Literature was offered I just didn't take it. The only novels I read were White Fang by Jack London, the fucking Hobbit, and The Scarlet Pimpernel by Emma Orczy, and a few excerpts from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in 11th grade.

So, if they read the Illiad at all in American education it has to be in college. I won't be reading it there because I am majoring in Accounting, so how I've been reading it so far is I've been reading by a couple lines each, re-reading them again and writing down the important names and terms to look up on the internet later

You're the one saying a 3000 year old poem holds any greater meaning than just being pulp fiction about a bunch of guys killing each other over a woman

There are hundreds of secondary sources, courses and various other material you can use to study The Iliad and Homer, so the uncovery process is not a matter of random bolts of intellectual flare but tedious studying.

When you make posts as if you just finished watching a marvel movie it makes me cringe because it shows how stuck you people are in your intellectual lens unearthing mindset, remove yourself from your relativist thinking and understand that greek tragedy is unique, particularly The Iliad, you're not watching a fucking space opera.

>Implying the Iliad wasn't the marvel movie of it's time
Idiot, you're talking about something that has gods flying around like superheroes. You're like a person who unearths Iron Man in the year 4000 and says to others "No man, you don't get it, it's so deep!"

>reading the Iliad with the lens of a 21 century person

Why would you do this?

just go back

kill yourself memephagous

Pro tip, the Iliad was just as shallow when it was created as it is now. There is no hidden depth or meaning, it's just trashy fiction from a time when thats what trashy fiction looked like. You're idolizing the 7th century BC equivalent of Game of Thrones.

Wrong

Thanks for the heads up, I don't know what I was thinking.

One of the most overrated memes that happened to survive history.

Boring story about romanticized combat where zeus basically trolls everyone and controls everything. There are a few silver linings of human empathy which shows the first signs of the western soul.

It probably is well crafted and technical in its original prose but it doesnt have much merit beyond that except historical signifigance.

Its the dbz of the ancient world.

Read the Iliad for it's historical significance and the influence it's had on western literature. Don't fall into the trap of thinking the work itself is somehow wrapped in layers of meaning just because it's old.

It's beautifully written in the original Greek. Trashy or no trashy, you have to have talent to consistently write/sing something in dactylic hexameter for thousands of lines.

There's not that much to get, ancient Greeks were a few steps above Cavemen and the entire city of Athens barely had half the population of Staten Island

Wait I never said that it had layers of meaning, I just didn't agree wish your stance that it's trash.

confirmed for never having read it.

in comparison to the novel, yes, epic poetry tends to deal with chadder topics and will avoid delving so far into the minutia of the human psyche, however there is still more than abundant material for the artist to make clear their expertise. the iliad is not just a meme; it's by no means the greatest thing every written, but it did dwarve all other western literary works for about two millennia. that's no simple feat.

I read it because I felt like it, not because I felt obligated. Your reading comprehension needs work. I was simply trying to warn OP of the hurdles a newcomer might face with Homer. You aren't an intellectual because you can understand the simple themes of the Iliad.

Are you reading it in Greek? Get off your high horse. I doubt you've even read it.

>not reading it in Greek
DON'T FUCKING DO THIS YOU RETARDS

TRANSLATIONS WILL DISTORT YOUR VIEW OF HOMER'S GREAT EPICS. THE MUSICALITY OF THE GREEK IS NOT PRESERVED IN ENGLISH.

YOU ARE READING A PARAPHRASE AT BEST

That's because you read it in English.

IT'S A POEM. YOU WILL NOT GET THE EFFECT OF POETRY IN TRANSLATION, EVER.

You don't understand the place of the gods in Greek society.

>Learning Greek just to read some capeshit about Zeus and his bros flying around fucking with people fighting over a whote
No thanks

Has a new wave of shitposters hit the board?

You're a retard. Do you want to know why the Greeks called Homer "The Poet"? Read him in Greek. My any metric, the Iliad is a beautiful work of literature. You don't understand it and you don't understand the Greeks, you're a redditor psued retard who looks at everything through the lens of a commercialist millenial.

...

>gets offended at the thought that not every work of literature is in their native language and that they might not be getting the full scope of the Iliad from a translation

There is a perfectly logical reason for the repetition of phrases, and you haven't mentioned it... you probably don't read translator's introductions do you?
"The Illiad" was an epic POEM, meaning it was written in prose. Specifically, it was written in dactylic hexameter, so those repetition of phrases "once they had their share of meat and wine" (for example) had a specific prosaic purpose. They had to fit in to the meter (which came in long/short syllables, as opposed to our stressed accents), and these often worked as good "fillers" if you would. These were also performed orally, and were "sung" so it makes sense for there to be this repetition.

You are trying too hard dumbfuck.

I'm sure it was a great work, for the time. Don't put it up on a pedestal just because it's old, and it had a large influence over other western literature. Judge it for what it is.

There was repetition for the same reason that there are choruses in pop music: to aid memorization and for it's inherent musicality.

You want me to "judge it for what it is" and yet you haven't even read the original.

Every generation of poets since 800 BC has venerated Homer. From Sappho to Ezra Pound, Homer has a definite impact, because he's a genius. Art doesn't "progress" linearly like science does.

I read the Iliad in high school, and I went to a public school so I don't know what kind of shit education they gave you in your shity school.

>not every work of literature is in their native language and that they might not be getting the full scope of the Iliad from a translation

>YOU ARE READING A PARAPHRASE AT BEST

Its a story of the divine.

I'm aware of this. The poetic flow is destroyed with translation but the "formulas" remain. I was simply trying to give OP a brief heads up of this. One of the most common complaints I hear of the Iliad is that people can't stand the repitition. It doesn't bother me, personally. It is truly an impressive work considering that it was orally recited and obviously these formulas were necessary.

>THE MUSICALITY OF THE GREEK

Lol, this is what "authentic" ancient Greek sounds like:

rhapsodes.fll.vt.edu/Aristophanes/aristophanes.htm

>Art doesn't "progress" linearly like science does.
It kind of does because each generation gives inspiration to create even greater works to the generations after. There's no doubt that the Iliad had a profound and lasting influence over western literature, it was the foundation that gave future authors ideas and inspiration to create something even greater.

The Iliad itself is a simple story with little subtext though.

>The Iliad itself is a simple story with little subtext though.
You only think that because you only read a simple story. Learn Greek.

better than anything written by shakespeare, surely.

Ancient Greek is basically Autistic Screeching: The Language.

>Learn Greek
Fuck off. You're being just as retarded as all the Muslims who say you can't really understand the Quran unless you read it in arabic.

>learn complicated ancient language
>woo boy now it's suddenly more difficult to read
>what a complex story!

It's true. It's a poem and you can't translate poetry. You aren't entitled to the opinion that one of the great works of literature is shit when you've only read a paraphrase because you're too lazy to learn a language

You're right! Homer is shit, every poet who ever praised him is wrong

And I don't think you understand that it's a poem, not a novel.

>Write a poem about Spiderman
>Now Spiderman is deep and complex

Yeah I get it.

>mfw 1000 years from now some autist like this guy is going to be claiming you don't understand the greatness of Harry Potter unless you read it in the original english

>Write a poem about autumn
>Now autumn is deep and complex
Keats was a hack
Homer wasn't anything like Harry Potter.

The various unknown poets we have come to place under an imaginary single fingure called Homer are remarkable only for their context

>You idiots don't understand the significance of wizardry to late post-modern English society!

You're such a psued it's pathetic
>be praised by literally every intelligent person from 800 BC to today
>people learn Greek just to read you
>some kid who read a shitty translation of him in English claims that Homer is only good for "historical context"
Yeah it's not like Homer was influential because he was really good or anything

>Homer wasn't anything like Harry Potter.

Based on what? They're both surface level adventure stories based in a whimsical magic mythology with highly reptitive prose and a wide memetic cast of characters often defined by a single virtue or power

Hector is the only alpha person in the Iliad. Defends city to protect his wife, newborn, and parents. Whole city of Troy is counting on him. Whole city spends 12 days in mourning the loss of him. I wept like a bitch.

But it isn't. The Iliad is superficially an "adventure story", but if you read it IN GREEK you'd know that there is far more to it.

You can do it to any poem
>lol Prufrock is just depression-core about an old fag who cares
>lol the Divine Comedy is literally FANFICTION lmao
>lmao Romeo was such a stupid faggot

>Still falling for the "superior classical civilization" meme

It's 2017 not 1500.

Its easy to claim something is influencial when its literally one of the first examples of something. You're mistaking ernest praise with it just being a really old meme

>being a pleb that you can't even acknowledge the greatness of the Greeks
>inb4 you reply with a meme about scientific progress

Homer was praised by every Greek writer. Everybody loved and praised him. He was "The Poet". And every great poet since has acknowledged Homer's greatness.

You can read it in English and see that it's not just an adventure story. There isn't even any adventure in it.

Oh how convenient its "true" quality is only obviously percievable to those who have put in a massive investment in accessing it

Are you saying that you're getting the same thing from an English translation? You're not.

You're a literal pleb. Go back to /r/books

>Oh no m'lady got scooped up by Chad
>Time to go to war
>Avengers assemble!
>Ships and fighting!
>Lol this wooden horse will trick them
>The end

Great story.

The Greeks were self fellating scoundrals, their praise for /ourguy/ means fuck all

Nice analysis, reddit. You truly show your patrician-ness by relating everything back to your only frame of reference, superhero movies!

We've had approximately 8 centuries since the advent of Modern English to come up with translations. With all that I wouldn't be surprised if the translations are superior than the original at this point

>There isn't even any adventure in it.

You can say that again

They aren't. There are no satisfactory translations of Homer.

>what is glory
>what is heroism

>What I say when I want to justify the time I wasted learning Greek.

It's not wasted. Stop projecting, pleb. Do you think that all of the classicists since the Renaissance wasted their time learning Greek? You're such a pleb that you don't see any value in learning a language that's not English. I think it's safe to say that you don't have any serious appreciation for literature.

You realise the entire population of Earth in 500bc was about the current population of Ethiopia
You're telling me in all that time and all the writers that have born Homer is anything remarkable outside historical context?

Now don't get me wrong, wanting to understand history may be a fine reason to learn Greek but pretending his work is this magnificant "too deep for you" masterpiece by modern standards is laughable

>You realise the entire population of Earth in 500bc was about the current population of Ethiopia
>You're telling me in all that time and all the writers that have born Homer is anything remarkable outside historical context?
Yes.
>Now don't get me wrong, wanting to understand history may be a fine reason to learn Greek but pretending his work is this magnificant "too deep for you" masterpiece by modern standards is laughable
Says the tard who thinks he understands a poem because he read an English translation.

>Do you think that all of the classicists since the Renaissance wasted their time learning Greek?

Learning Greek (and Latin) was a normal part of a liberal education into the late 1800s, when it became unnecessary for an educated participation in society. Continuing to treat it as it was, rather than as the specialized field that it is now is ridiculous.

What's your point? It was never unnecessary, education just became democratized and plebs were too lazy to learn Greek and Latin. To be educated in literature, you need to know the classical languages.

Even the upper class doesn't learn greek or latin anymore, but go ahead and backtrack that literally the entire planet has become plebs since the advent of contemporary science

You deny that education is less rigorous now than in the past?

This thread is so fucking hella of a cancer

I feel sick after reading these posts

>It was never unnecessary

Then what is it necessary for, for the average educated person? I don't like the "current year" meme, but society has changed to the point that knowing these languages is indeed unnecessary. You do realize that one of the reasons that people were taught these languages in the past is that there were not translations available, don't you?

Having to defend your doctoral dissertation in Latin was certainly rigorous, but that ability has no practical use in today's world. It had one then (international communication), but not now.

Rigorous doesn't necessarily mean superior, especially if that rigor involves uncritical acceptance of sacred cows

It's not unnecessary if you have a serious interest in literature. But obviously you just view art as a form of entertainment.
I don't have a doctorate, I'm just an aspiring writer who wants to learn from the greats

>But obviously you just view art as a form of entertainment.

The strawmaning has begun

>Homer is shit man, it's a fact, everybody else was wrong
at last i truly see

>It's not unnecessary if you have a serious interest in literature. But obviously you just view art as a form of entertainment.

Reading translations suffices to provide one with the classical background necessary. Anything beyond that should be covered in the annotated editions (produced by specialists) that we have today. Becoming a specialist yourself is not necessary. If you want to do that, great, you're not wasting your time, but demanding it of others is wrong.

>I don't have a doctorate, I'm just an aspiring writer who wants to learn from the greats

I didn't mean to imply that you had a doctorate. I was simply using that as an example of the rigors of past education.