How do I start with the Greeks?

How do I start with the Greeks?

By actually starting with the romans because the greeks are totally inapplicable to today

Just read the Iliad. Yes you will think it's a massive book, yes you will also don't understand anything the first 50 to 100 pages. Just struggle through, try reading it aloud and look at some internet resources every now and then.

Start with Plato. You're going to get meme'd into thinking that you need to study a dozen irrelevant presocratics, and have a scholarly understanding of Greek mythology and history. But in reality, a book with footnotes, and google should clear all of that up. He's a pretty easy read for a beginner; though you might want to find some analyses of the text you're reading, so that you can absorb it to its fullest potential.

Entire Ulysses is a reference to the Odyssey. Yeah, pretty inapplicable today.

How is a century old book like Ulysses applicable today?

It was written for an entirely different target audience.

I already did
Odyssey and Aeneid too

Then move on to Greek playwrights, historians and poets. Sappho, Pindar, Aeschylos, Sophocles, Euripides, Homeric Hymns Hesiod, Herodotus and Thucydides are all amazing imo.

>But in reality, a book with footnotes, and google should clear all of that up.
yikes.

How is it difficult to read a 200 page general description of Greek myth/culture and a general summary of the presocratics of similar length?

read Thucydides History, Herodotus Histories, Xenophons Anabasis, Frogs, Three Theban Plays, Electra

It's not very hard, but it's pretty unnecessary. Presocratics are pretty irrelevant, and people should have at least an elementary understanding of Greek history/mythology/culture already, but in terms of pure philosophy, it's not that important.

Oh gosh this guy is back with his shelf of sadness.

Starting with the Greeks is code for pederasty

>Sappho, Pindar
Throw Archilochus in between those two

The Illiad is fun! Everyone in it is fucking retarded and Achilleus is an Emo. The only thing hard about it is the dryness of speech and the number of names - but most names you do not need to remember so it's ok.

Is there any presocratics worth reading?

Parmenides is GOAT.

Anaxagoras, Gorgia, Parmenides...etc. I don't really understand why people want to skip the fore-fathers of Western Philosophy, since without them you won't understand what the fuck Plato or Aristotle are talking about.

> without them you won't understand what the fuck Plato or Aristotle are talking about.
uhh, this is wrong. As long as you can grasp the historical setting and the concept of FORM and the virtual ideal Socratese is instantaneously comprehended.

Start with the Star People

Meno and Phaedo desu

what are your fav. characters?

the dialogues?

You will definitely be at a loss when it comes to Aristotle and you will miss how Plato attempts to synthesize Parmenides and Heraclitus, not to mention his own frequent references to guys like Empedocles and Anaxagoras

It's not necessary, like you're trying to put it, but it certainly would help to have knowledge and understanding of the predecessors in reading forward.

Plus, well annotated editions that contain these felllas' dialogues go a long way to explain references and contexts.

It doesn't sound necessary to you because you didn't read the presocratics and don't want to believe that many significant things went over your head as a result you absolute plebeian. Restart with the Greeks

you are a retard. that argument can be applied to literally every single book, so why even bother reading at all?

No, it just isn't necessary in order to understand what the socratics are talking about.

Homer, Plato, Herodotus, Thucydides, Sophocles, Aeschylus and Euripides.

Can't go wrong with Page One.

>foundations of modern society, the influence of which is still present today
>inapplicable
you're a dumb nigger
start with the greeks.

Hector because he's a badass and Archileus because he's such a fucking crybaby.

Anaxagoras, Gorgia, Parmenides, Heraclitus, Empedocles and Anaxagoras.
In which order should i read them and should i skip or add any?

>dryness of speech
Which translation did you read?

Is there anything of them to read anyway? I think there are only fragments of each of them and references to them in other texts.

An old danish one from the 60's/70's something - but the dryness of speech is just the natural thing that happens when a text is about two and a half thousand years old, it's actually much less dry than i expected when i first opened the book.

danske oversættelser er aldrig gode. har opgivet at læse på modersproget, undtagen hvis det er en dansk forfatter

>tfw reading all possible sagas
>tfw barely read any Greeks

Ok, so what should i read to get them covered - i prefer reading what people say themselves but if it's not possible then 'that's that'?

Jeg fandt Otto Gjelsteds oversættelse fin - den oversættelse jeg har af odyssen er dog oversat fra norsk til dansk - så jeg ved ikke lige hvor kont det bliver at læse

Start with the eddas

>Presocratics
I'm taking a an introductionary course on greek philosophy. Our first 2-3 lessons where about the Presocratics, and after that we plunged into Plato's dialogues and after that Aristo.
I guess there's a reason we started with those, but I didn't get to the bottom of them (although I haven't tried that much), and felt it wasn't too much of a loss when we got into Plato.

^

bump

Why are you bumping? Either start with the Presocratics, or jump into Plato. What about this did you not get?

Hi i'm i didn't bump, but it would still be nice with some book recommendations.

for the most part the specifics of the pre-socratics matter less. the main thrust to be aware of is the impulse to subject the world to an examination that yields results and order that can be expressed and understood rationally. in broad strokes - which are debatable - this represents a 'move forward' from an older more religious schematic in which the sometimes chaotic force of divine wills was responsible as opposed to something closer to what we regard as natural and invariable laws. So the importance is the thought process, not the actual results of that process.

the exclusion to this is in heraclitus and xenophanes, both of whom enter more into what is later called moral philosophy as opposed to the natural philosophy described above. but even theirs is more just a median point on the way to plato, a step forward from subjecting nature to laws of rationality to subjecting human perspective and behavior to the same.

That depends on what you want to study, OP. You can read ancient historiographers, philosophers, poets, playwrights, and so on. Honestly it is all pretty much irrelevant nowadays, but it is useful to understand how these writing formats developed over history.
I'd personally read Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Hesiod, Heraclitus, Plato and Aristotle - but it really depends on your interests, so just go with what catches your attention.
Only "required" readings are Homer, Plato and Aristotle.

Kirk and Raven's the presocratic philosophers is p. good.

Thanks