/lit/ - Literature

>and the headstrong runner answered Agamemnon in kind:
>"No Trojan ever called me nigger"

>>23312618
>Self-help slop
Hahaha. Nice term.
>No original ideas
I am sure he might have some new spin on stoicism but in the case of deciding the most important virtue he should choose one already. It actually changed throughout time. For the Greeks courage was the most important (and rare) virtue whereas Christians changed the most important one to wisdom (while still agreeing that courage is the rarest) which I see as a change from warrior ethics to priest/philosopher ethics. Hardly anyone talks about that change.

What is the best translation of the iliad?

how do they expect me to take this guy seriously when his whole motivation is "I WANNA HAVE GAY SEX NOW I WANNNA HAVE GAY SEX NOW I WANT TO HAVE GAY SEX NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOW"

μῆνιν ἄειδε θεὰ Πηληϊάδεω Ἀχιλῆος
Sing, goddess, of the wrath of Peleus' son, Achilles,
Holla bitch 'bout Achilles' seething

I've been reading the Iliad for the first time and I'm constantly struck by how cowardly and immature Achilles comes across.
At times it really feels like a shitty shounen. Achilles gets pissy, hides away, watches and listens as his allies, friends and countrymen are destroyed, then glides in at the climax - purely because his safety is at risk - and saves the day? What a monumental asspull.
Aias and Hektor should be remembered more fondly than this petulant prick. I'm ashamed to have part of my anatomy named after him.

Who is the best translator of Homer?

inb4 read the original. I struggle with modern foreign languages, I'm sure as shit not capable of reading Ancient Greek.

>>19620018
Something that strikes the best balance between preserving the sense of the original Greek but also being pleasing and compelling to read in its new language, I suppose. Translation is a spectrum between a literal but unreadable translation and an easy-reading, but unfaithful translation. I suppose I want someone that maintains a tasteful balance.

Through poetry, we can know things beyond knowing. We can know in a transecendent way.

This is why the epic poems are so powerful. They tell a story, like prose, but they tell it in a way that lets us feel it, in addition to merely knowing it. Go listen to the videos on YouTube of the Iliad recited in its original language and meter, and tell me you don't feel something. Now imagine if you could understand it, too. Imagine what an experience that would be.

Did Achilles really cry and pointlessly prolong a war and cause hell to break out because he couldn't really rape a slave girl anymore because big bad Agememnon said so?
These are our epic heroes???
And then "Ol' Gimpy" Hephestus tells Hera to quit having a woman moment because they want to hedonistically revel
I am surely missing something

>Guy who kills people
>Called Akillese
Really, Homer?

I've been writing some narrative poetry lately.

It's interesting to tell a story in prose and then try to tell another story in verse. You could even try to tell the SAME story in prose versus telling it in verse. But the verse is just... different. Lines of poetry, arranged in regular meter, just have this way of setting a story. Framing it. It doesn't feel the same as reading a novel or a short story. I suppose the trite thing to say is that a story told in verse is "more powerful" than a story told in prose. That sounds very cliched, doesn't it?

But it definitely is true that a narrative poem is very different than a novel or a short story. All three of them are stories told, but the story told in verse is just... different. To a large extent because of the change in mediums.

Books full of adventure, seafaring, and manly heroism and brotherly love?

Ex: Iliad, Odyssey

Also the vibe of this song: https://youtu.be/WVkD4lgXTEU

Does anybody else think that modern books just flat-out aren't entertaining? People complain about the Classics or the Western Canon, but when you look at great works of literature that have survived the test of time, most of them are actually pretty good reads as far as actual entertainment value. The Iliad is a blast to read. So is War and Peace. So are most of the Arthurian romances. So is Moby-Dick. And so on. Yet it seems like a lot of modern "serious" literature is deliberately extremely dull and not entertaining. It's usually about the dull lives of really boring people and their dull, boring friends.

For those who have read the iliad and surrounding myths, literature, etc.

Is there any actual evidence that Achilles is 'gay'? What are these modern authors basing this idea on bar the fact that patroclus seemed like a close friend?

Do people doing this actually make it so that men can't be emotional and care for other men? If you do then you are 'gay'.

I've only read one translation and I sense no homosex, even though we know of the power-dynamics of bi-sex Greek men. The older fucks the younger, the younger learns from the older, etc. I wasn't sure if one of the other translations made a more direct statement about his homosexuality?

I'm not against it. Just arguing with a friend who has read that bloody fictional romance book based on Achilles and patroclus.

The greatest epic poem of history revolves around toxic masculinity.

Before the story of Achilles, Prometheus prophesize that his mother would give birth to a son who would surpass the father.

How exactly does becoming a war hero surpass becoming a king? Was Promethues a thud like Epimetheus or am I missing something here?

why did he SEETHE so hard about bryseis when he had some fine ass at his side the whole time?

Achilles really went crying to his mommy because Agamemnon took his toy? This is supposed to be Achaea’s greatest warrior?

I finished it two days ago. I thought it was great. I thought it’d be dry, but it had some pretty great moments. Great action scenes like Diomedes fighting the gods and really moving ones like Priam visiting Achilles to retrieve Hector’s body. The best part where the little vignettes about the soldier who die.

>boo hoo muh bf died bc he was a retard me angery

And people sympathies with this mongrel...

I remember this bitch getting destroyed via comparative analysis from some Greek scholar, don't have the link anymore though

wait

https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/homer-for-scalawags-emily-wilsons-odyssey/#!

Absolute patrician destruction