/lit/ - Literature

Have you finished your Sumerians?

>>15184668
>>15184676
don't listen to this, though you did ask for it. You can begin there, or anywhere. The Iliad is a singular literary achievement on its own.

>>15184668
Look up what the ancient Greeks actually wore armor wise and learn about how they fought back then. The fighting in the Iliad is chaotic as hell with basically squads jumping in fighting then pulling back to allow another squad to run in. Get ready for the Chad that is Diomedes btw

>>15184668
Before the Iliad, you only need to read Mythology by Hamilton. It'll prep you for the plethora of names, customs, Gods that people already knew of back then as common knowledge when this was spoken/written. It's short and concise and worth the read

>>15184668

>>15184676

>He didn't start with the Ubaid

ngmi

Read the Illiad and google who the gods are as you go, if someone in particular seems interesting you can find lots of sources on them.

I had a blast because as a teen I loved an animu based on greek mythology, so I spent lots of time reading about the constellations, pantheon, beasts and so on

>>15184759
Thanks anon. Would you recommend reading the whole thing, or can I skip her descriptions of events that happen in the Homeric epics?

>>15184759
yes , it's also nice to look to use as reference guide while reading. It has an index in the bakc so you can look up names fast

>>15184759
I agree. Edith Hamilton's Mythology is good prerequisite to familiarize yourself with the culture.

>>15184805
What anime?

>>15184837
It's worth to read the whole thing and pretty short but I suppose you can use it strictly for reference. Most of it is just short summaries of poems and characters and if you did end up taking interest you could always just read the actual plays/poems/etc.

>>15184868
Do you have any recommendations for collected editions of assorted plays and poems?

>>15184856
Saint Seiya

It's in no way fidedign to greek mythology by the way. I thought Athena was a cute girl who cared about humanity, when in fact she was a spiteful cunt.

>>15184837
read the whole shit, it's pretty fun, even the norse chapter

>>15184668
you don't need to anything before you anything, stop being a slave to basement-dweller designed charts and graphs that show you a path to enlightenment, you, and any other person in the world have all the tools to read homer and sincerely connect and understand something about the text.

also don't read that garbage middle school translation,

lattimore for a literal translation
fitzgerald for a poetic translation

>>15184895
The graph posted earlier is good for plays and poems. The historical shit, you can mostly avoid.
>>15184965
>Just Google everything bro
Slave, who? Either way, you're going to need a reference. Hamilton's mythology is excellent and an almost universal staple for beginning the Greeks.

>>15184965
Is Fagles actually garbage? It’s the only physical translation I own

>>15185052
No he's just being a pseud. In the end, any mainstream translation like the three mentioned are going to be more than sufficient. If he's going to be a real faggot about translations, then he should just read the ancient Greek one. I've read fagles and lattimore, they're all clear and good.

>>15185052
It’s not bad and you should read it. In fact read all three of those translations. Fagles is a good in between which is why his translation is so often used in middle and high school. Next thing you know he’s going to say catch-22 is a bad book because high schoolers read it in class

>>15184668
They were kinda gay

>>15184668
Start with the akkadians

>>15184668
Start with the cave paintings

>>15184668
Dive into a river and try and fight it first

>>15184895
in general for collected plays, uchicago press editions are a safe choice, these are the ones that are edited by david grene or richmond lattimore, uchicago prints little paperbacks titled like - "Aeschylus I ,Aeschylus II, Aeschylus III" each having a few plays as well as large hardcover volumes of "The Complete Greek Tragedies - Vol 1. Sophocles" etc.....

worth noting that no translation is perfect, and the work of translating greek tragedy is, in my experience, significantly more difficult than translating later attic greek writers (plato, aristotle) and koine greek (neoplatonists, new testament) so whatever translation you choose it will be imperfect and will have shortcomings,

At least for a first reading, I would suggest avoiding recent translations, ones with radical perspectives on the text, or that attempt to conform greek too much to modern english conventions (translations that use an abundance of casual language like - "dude, Huh?, Oh crap! etc." and sticking to more traditional translations that have stood the test of time, older and standard translations will usually be found in the Dover Thrift and in the Loeb Library.

Rule of thumb good, established publishers of greek translations:
Modern Library, Dover Thrift, UChicago, Everyman's Library, Loeb Series

YMMV Publishers -
Anchor Books, Focus Philosophical Series, UMichigan Press, Oxford, Hackett (in my opinion oxford and hackett are quite bad, but many people like them)

Bad Publishers -
Penguin without a doubt. Do not buy a penguin unless the book was written in English, and even then, avoid it. (exception of Livy)

>>15185052
>>15185097
>>15185131

I spoke very strongly. I think it's a bad idea to read any translation with a constant anxiety of "Oh, what am I missing out on, my translation sucks." You should take the translation seriously because Fagles, or any other translator took painstaking effort, and I doubt any passage in the book was produced without really serious thinking on the part of Fagles, that took into consideration many questions of meter, grammar, philology, textual authority, poetry and made with a broad awareness of Homeric literature and greek literature as a whole.

The Fagles is an excellent translation, but I don't think it compares to the translations of Lattimore or Fitzgerald. Lattimore is astoundingly precise and lucid, there is no other choice for a reference english text when you are translating Homer. I don't need to say much about Fitzgerald. His translations will be read for hundreds of years. Fagles comparatively, is mediocre as translator and writer. Even if what you want is a balanced translation, I think you would be better off with the Pope.

>>15184790
I do not trust this chart

>>15185041
I don't think a reference is necessary. I think the text is the only context necessary to understand the characters of the gods in homer. While the Iliad presumably existed in a cultural context with established myths and histories that a first hand reader or listener would have had, we don't have that context. We have inferred that context by reading Homer, Sophocles, Plato, etc. The diverging depictions in greek literature of myths, and the difficulties in interpreting their subtle and ambiguous presentations make it impossible for us to establish a precise canonical understanding of greek mythology.

The most information we would do well to conclude about and inform readers of are: the images gods are associated with and their city allegiances: for example Athena is often depicted as a bird, she is associated with techne and tools, is often associated with wisdom/nomos, etc. obviously she has a deep connection with the city of athens.

Saying anything more would be speculative, and likely doing interpretive work that interferes with the reader's understanding, and from what I recall (I have not read it in a long time, and I did not read it carefully) Edith Hamilton's mythology isn't terrible in this regard, but does speak in an authoritative tone about matters that are speculative, and would constrain a reader of Homer to the modern, academic understanding of the greek gods.