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All Great Lit must include one exceeding long boring section thst weirdo fans can defend to the death It’s like the part in Ulysses that reverts back to Old English, or the catalogue of Stuff from Vanity Fair, or the entirety of Middlemarch
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Apr 15, 2023 01:42
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The Oddysey is way more fun obviously. But the iliad is cooler if only for the humanity and warmth its antagonists are allowed - Hector is going to end up mutilated and eaten by dogs yet he’s shown comforting his infant son after his armour scares him, he’s shown being afraid and uncertain and putting on a brave face. It’s brutal and the contrast with the coldly compiled PYF ships lists and glory porn is where the magic lies
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Apr 16, 2023 21:11
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Shogi posted:The Oddysey is way more fun obviously. But the iliad is cooler if only for the humanity and warmth its antagonists are allowed - Hector is going to end up mutilated and eaten by dogs yet he’s shown comforting his infant son after his armour scares him, he’s shown being afraid and uncertain and putting on a brave face. It’s brutal and the contrast with the coldly compiled PYF ships lists and glory porn is where the magic lies This, exactly. It's not afraid to face the horror and brutality of war at the same time that it, on the surface, glamorizes and celebrates the brave heroic feats. The family fuckup Paris and Hector are the best , and it's incredible that the dynamic traverses 3,000 years to hit so hard.
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Apr 17, 2023 01:13
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Shogi posted:The Oddysey is way more fun obviously. But the iliad is cooler if only for the humanity and warmth its antagonists are allowed - Hector is going to end up mutilated and eaten by dogs yet he’s shown comforting his infant son after his armour scares him, he’s shown being afraid and uncertain and putting on a brave face. It’s brutal and the contrast with the coldly compiled PYF ships lists and glory porn is where the magic lies poisonpill posted:This, exactly. It's not afraid to face the horror and brutality of war at the same time that it, on the surface, glamorizes and celebrates the brave heroic feats. The family fuckup Paris and Hector are the best , and it's incredible that the dynamic traverses 3,000 years to hit so hard. Yeah, exactly! Well posted IMO, Shogi. Also to be honest, I found the dry PYF style lists of ships and individual soldiers' family trees to be kind of humorous as well, in a way.  Imagining like, the original Greeks narrating the story back in the day, rattling off a list of a hundred ship names or listing a dozen names back to when X ancestor conceived a child with Zeus. (Who was in the form of a deer or something, at the time) Just casually slotted into the middle of describing a battle of the ages, haha
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Apr 18, 2023 05:31
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Is there a preferred translation for someone who's never read either work?
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Apr 18, 2023 14:35
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Foreskin Problems posted:Is there a preferred translation for someone who's never read either work? My high school English teacher very sternly told us to read Fagles' translation. No clue why though lol
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Apr 18, 2023 14:53
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Foreskin Problems posted:Is there a preferred translation for someone who's never read either work? There’s lots of translations of both so its a bit of a question of opinion. I’m gonna stick to the Iliad because I have stronger feelings about it and this post is already long Lattimore was the standard mid-20th century version though I think he’s probably considered outmoded these days. He tries to be fairly literal and metrical, and the result is often kind of stilted. Fitzgerald’s translation came next, some of his vocabulary choices are odd and it’s blank verse which some people hate but I like this one. Fagles is still more recent and the one I read in school: looser translation, more poetic aspirations. Alexander Pope’s version is great and an etext is easily obtained legally for free, which is not true of more recent versions. but by the same token it’s very, very of its time (early 18th century) so names are hosed with (ie Jove for Zeus, Greeks for Achaians), lot of somewhat weird words and syntax, and it’s all in rhyming couplets (works better than you might think). Still a great work of historic literature in its own right. If you’re into poetry of that period you’ll probably love it Comparison of openings: Lattimore posted:Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus' son Achilles Fitzgerald posted:Anger be now your song, immortal one, Fagles posted:Rage—Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles, Pope posted:Achilles’ wrath, to Greece the direful spring
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Apr 18, 2023 17:45
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Foreskin Problems posted:Is there a preferred translation for someone who's never read either work? There was a lot of buzz for Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey when it came out
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Apr 18, 2023 18:19
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distortion park posted:There was a lot of buzz for Emily Wilson's translation of the Odyssey when it came out She has an Iliad coming out this fall. Her Odyssey is pretty readable but some lines, particularly in dialogue, absolutely sent me. Like she renders the first line of Odysseus’ speech to the suitors right before he starts shooting them as “playtime’s over”.
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Apr 18, 2023 18:33
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Hey that's a really cool comparison of translations, thanks. I like the Pope excerpt a lot but I might have trouble taking it seriously if he keeps the couplets rolling for the entire book. Think my school book was also Fagle but it's in a box somewhere.
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Apr 18, 2023 19:07
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aeneid bitch
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Apr 18, 2023 19:55
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DOPE FIEND KILLA G posted:aeneid bitch Pshh get that fan fiction outta here im kidding the Aeneid rules. The touch of Aeneas returning to the waking world through the gate of ivory is one of the all time defining moments of literature
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Apr 18, 2023 20:25
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Lattimores opening line is so much better than the rest, whatever their other merits
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Apr 18, 2023 20:37
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distortion park posted:Lattimores opening line is so much better than the rest, whatever their other merits Lattimore doesn’t always hit the mark as far as like, reading for entertainment goes. But he’s not trying to produce the Iliad as literary work, but as a scholarly text which will help you comprehend the original, and in service of that goal he sometimes comes up with a really sick line. He also (relatedly) has the best introduction to his translation, which ends with a short and refreshingly non-self-promotional explanation of what he is going for with it. https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/9780226470498_Lattimore_intro.pdf
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Apr 18, 2023 21:31
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Fruits of the sea posted:Hey that's a really cool comparison of translations, thanks. I've only read Pope's rendering, it's heroic couplets start to finish. Honestly I enjoyed it -- the rhythm moves it right along, and made it easy for me to think of the epic as an oral instead of literary work. But it's a thing in and of itself, very much POPE'S Iliad
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Apr 19, 2023 01:33
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I gotta reread these, its been way too long
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Apr 19, 2023 03:20
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skasion posted:Pshh get that fan fiction outta here I always fondly think of Lacoön pointing out that this horse is probably a loving trap and immediately getting demolished by sea monsters and everyone going "uh i guess this horse is cool"
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Apr 19, 2023 05:00
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