homer's epics

[ShadesWolf]

So who has read them?
and what do yo u think?

[Subotan]

I started reading Ulysses by James Joyce
I realised I had no idea what was going on
I bought the Odyssey, thinking it would be a bit dry/dull
Only to be very pleasantly surprised when it turned out that it was very easily readable, and with a contempoaryish plot. I loved it.
In short: buy them, and read them.

[ShadesWolf]

Which translation did you read of Odyssey?

Ive read the lattimore and listened to the samuel Butler version. Quite similar but quite different intersting how different people tranlate the meaning of certain greek words and which meaning they use.

[Prince Cobra]

I read Iliad seven years ago. There are still two years left before the fall of Troy. ~:p I haven't read Odysseus, though the character is my favourite hero in the Troy epic. His adventures are also very fascinating.

It is clear I did because we studied it at school and apart from few expressions, there was not anything intriguing in the story. As a matter of fact, before reading the Iliad, I read a compilation (500 pages) with the basic Greek myths and legends. The events in the Iliad are disappointingly small part of what happened. It does not depict the fall of Troy and what happens with most of the characters. The Agamemnon's family (his treacherous wife and his son bound to avenge his father), Odysseus and his avdentures, and even the Roman propaganda about the Troyan survivovors... Some of the plots are quite intriguing.


Sign,

:apple: "To the most beautiful"

[caravel]

The Robert Fitzgerald translations (in prose) of the Iliad and Odyssey are quite good. There are a lot of other translations to consider however.

[CountArach]

I ok a course in this semester gone by called Ancient Epic in which we read the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Aeneid and Lucan's Civil War. Of the four I found the Civil War to be most interesting because of the way it completely subverts the genre. But out of the two Greek ones I found the Odyssey to be far more interesting while I thought the Iliad was probably the better written of the two.

Also Homer didn't exist as a single person... just sayin'

[Megas Methuselah]

I like how "Homer" measures the wealth of individuals by their flocks of animals. Very dark age-ish.