Start with the Gr

...

Get fucked faggots, you deserve it all.

Start with the Greeks.

Building giant triangles is not as literary as engaging in homoerotic sports so Egypt doesn't count

Ancient Sumerian and Egyptian literature is rather irrelevant in the broader context for the Western literary and philosophical tradition. The Greeks, however, are a fundamental influence - without which you cannot fully understand the Western canon.

Just start with the Atlanteans

If you haven't read Epic of Gilgamesh, Enuma Elish, and the Pyramid Texts you don't know shit about literature.

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What if hordes of scantily clad men erect a giant, stone phallus in the middle of the desert in the most lascivious and homoerotic manner possible, stopping on occasion to lick the stone phallus the are building?

Start with the Neolithics

jews are not sexy

What if they were genetically engineered through a process of eugenics to make them very sexy jews?

Start with the pre-Egyptian cave paintings.

>Enuma Elish, and the Pyramid Texts

Recommended versions?

Enuma Elish - L.W. King
Pyramid Texts - E.A. Wallis Budge

Start with the sheep people who were scared of their god

Ancient Greek isn't the birthplace of literature. It's the birthplace of good literature, hence the advice. If you want to read shit from Egypt or Sumeria feel free to do so.

Greece*

Why not start with the Rig Veda. It is potentially older than all these texts. And it's philosophically engaging.

It's also impossible to translate, so you better get learning Sanskrit

What makes it more impossible to translate than other Sanskrit texts?

I've read the Mahabharata and it came across just fine in English. And it's not like the Mahabharata isn't ancient.

They're very cryptic, any translation is basically someone's opinion on what they mean.

I'm guessing you read an abridged Mahabharat? The original is about 3 times as long as the Bible!

I read RK Narayan's rendering but had also downloaded Debroy's 12 (or 14 I forget) book translation. I haven't read it but it exists and is regarded as a uncolored translation. I'm just wondering why such a translation can't exist for the Rig Veda.

You know that we don't advise starting with Greeks because they were the first, right?

Christians?

>y'all niggas don't even read antediluvian lit

>not starting with the atlantean translations of the martian holographic hieroglyphs
P 1 _ B S

This. Have you guys actually read Gilgamesh? It sucks. And it should, because it's the first epic ever. It's INTERESTING because you see basic literary and epic structures and ideas in their earliest forms, but it's not GOOD, and is dogshit when compared to Homer.

>starting with the greeks

I seriously hope no one actually does this.

Start with the Bible, then Cervantes/Shakespeare/Milton. Everyone already knows the Iliad and Odyssey without ever having read them and most even know about Oedipus too. That's about as much as you need.

>reading fragments

>yfw I have been reading Greeks/Romans for two years now and have an entire Greek/Roman bookcase which is overflowing with a whole shelf for Plato/Aristotle
>yfw I'm just getting started

>plodding through ancient works while everyone else is enjoying more contemporary literature

>what if they were made into something other than jews?

>only reading fiction

lol

no wonder the bookshelf threads are always so fucking embarrassing

what the fuck
Did you actually start with doing this and if you did how did you muster enough patience to get through them? I find Crime and Punishment somewhat boring because of all the dialogue that seems pointless

>pleb doesn't enjoy timeless classics

It's ok, they aren't meant for you anyway. Stick with your Harry Potter and Hemingway you disgusting normie.

Well, I think we all should read the epic of gilgamesh, which is pre-greeks.

Everyone knows a bunch of shit that isn't actually in the Iliad and Odyssey but is easily conveyed in a sentence or two and thereby masquerades as Homeric in the public perception. Most people know a lot more of the Bible and Shakespeare than they know of Homer, so why would they read those by your logic?

You fucking plebs. If you guys actually cared about understanding things then you'd start with the Permian period.

start with the amphibians

>he doesn't read Neanderthal carvings

lmao@urlife

>patience
Most of the Greeks/Romans are fun as hell. The hardest part is getting settled into the groove that each writer/genre/era offers, and these are hardly surprising: their histories are inspirational, their tragedies are emotional. Each genre responds to a need within you; the difficulty is hearing it and learning to understand it. I didn't read any ancient history for a few months and was practically itching to get back to it; I've been a bit tense and worked up over the past few weeks so I'm going to read some Euripides today.

It's like exercising: If it's "work" and you have to force yourself to do it, you'll never do it consistently. But if you enjoy it you don't even think about it. I'm not saying everyone should read the Greeks/Romans, but I'm saying it's possible to really enjoy them.

>get through them

Dude I have so much left to read. But I enjoy that because it means I can probably keep reading these guys forever, bit by bit.

I maintain that "starting with the Greeks" is not entirely but LARGELY an exercise for people who aren't used to reading nonfiction or typically "boring" books. It's a practice run that introduces you to effectively every major modern literary genre, while forcing you to develop good reading habits; if you don't, you'll never finish let alone understand, e.g., Plato. Something like Crime and Punishment will be a breeze after you're done with Thucydides.