classiclitclub

There will be no new post this week, as we're switching from 3 chapters per week to 3 chapters every two weeks. If you've fallen behind, I encourage you to go ahead and post any observations for books 1-9 on the most recent discussion post. If you want to make sure you've got a copy of the new schedule, I've updated it here.

Next post goes up on Monday, January 28.

What is the Iliad about, and why should I read it?

The Iliad is a famous work of ancient literature, one of the building blocks of western lit; it's also one surprisingly shippy, with two men so close that at least one movie adaptation made them "cousins" to try to discourage it from being seen as a love story (sidenote: it did not work). It's a war story set in a time of gods and men, and all of them are pissed off and trying to cram a walnut in the other's face.

The war all began because a Trojan prince (Paris) ran off with a greek queen (Helen, of Troy, formerly of Sparta) and her husband and a whole bunch of his best buddies run off to Troy. The Iliad begins in-media-res during the war, with two of the Greek commanders fighting bitterly over an enslaved woman, taken as a spoil of war.

Which Version of the Iliad should I read?

Good question, without a good answer. There are, roughly, a million and a half different versions of the Iliad. What version is right for you is MOSTLY a matter of personal preference; some are written in prose, some retain the poetic structure homer used (dactylic hexameter), others translate it into blank verse, rhyming couplets, sonnets, and more. This page has an exhaustive list of different options, including links to the complete text for most of the ones that are out of copyright, along with reviews for those as well as those still in copyright that are available for sale. I recommend clicking through a few until you find a version you like...but if you don't want to do that, I'm going to recommend a couple options, divided between free/not free for several versions:

Commercial
Generally, most college or high school programs that teach the Iliad today recommend either the Lattimore or Fagles translations. The Lattimore translation is straightforward and faithful to the original greek text to a fault, up to keeping the Greek spellings for names, ie Achilles is referred to as “Achilleus”; Ajax is “Aias". On the other hand, the Fagles translation more dramatic and less literal, but it takes liberties that wind up sacrificing parts of the Greekishness of it all - the epithets being a major change, eg "Hector of the shining helmet" instead becomes "Hector's helmet flashed." A problem with both of these options is that none of these are free, but both are commonly available in libraries.

I would also like to spotlight a very recent translation, that by Caroline Alexander. This is the first translation done by a woman, and is one that tries to make a complete line for line translation of the Greek epic and aims for faithfulness to the Greek overall.

Free Options

They are by no means the only translations, however; the extremely popular (and extremely out of copyright) translation by Alexander Pope is widely considered to be one of the most eloquent of the poetic translations, and was certainly the most popular version available in the 18th/19th century. While it takes some liberties with the text, it is certainly evocative and offers the sort of verbal melody that Homer's audience would have been familiar with. One Caveat: All the names have been translated to the Latin names, so Zeus becomes "Jove"; Hades becomes "Pluto" and so on. I'll make a point, when doing any listing of the character names, of including both the Greek and Latin names, when they differ.

For a more literal-minded free prose version, the version translated by Theodore Alois Buckley takes few liberties and gives exhaustive notes as to why Buckley has translated phrases one way or another. If you can read ancient Greek or would like to learn, this will give you plenty of exposure, and insight, into how this was translated. However, it can be a "plainer" translation in many ways. It can also be a bit indecisive on the names used; eg Hades is used as the name for the realm of the dead but the god of the dead is referred to as Pluto -- but Zeus is "Jove"; Athena, "Minerva". This can make it confusing for anyone coming into this without a solid knowledge of the Latin names of these characters.

Many of the out of copyright versions can be downloaded from Project Gutenberg as well.

Audiobooks

The Iliad was originally an epic poem that was spoken aloud! If you would like to experience it the way the ancient Greeks did, there are MANY audiobooks available. Librivox has several free versions in a variety of languages. Audible also boasts many professionally recorded versions, including the Alexander, Fagles, and Lattimore editions, though the only thing free are samples.

Is there any content that might be considered triggering to sensitive readers?

Yeah. This book has a lot of battles, and therefore, a lot of violence. There's considerable amounts of violence, considerable description of gore resulting from said violence and at least one suggestion of rape.

Is there anything I should know before starting this if I'm not familiar with Greek mythology?

Yes. Because this opens in-media res, it does not provide an explanation for what brought the Greeks to war with the Trojans. Thankfully, this page does quite a good job of describing what happened before the epic began: which is mostly, bitter infighting, over apples. Yep. Apples. 

We will begin reading on January 1. On that day, I will post up a post with a summary and dramatis personae of the first chapters for that week. The chapters read will remain the same no matter which version you choose, so go with whatever you would like. 

The first meeting of the Classic Literature Club will now come to order! *bangs gavel*

So: We were talking on EAD and it looks like there's some interest in doing a classic literature club, which YAY! But then I have a few questions:

• What eras should we focus on? Ancient Greek only? Roman? Everything in the public domain?
• What format would you prefer? Would people be more interested in a club where someone can make a post for a book, and people can fill in comments on various chapters/scenes, or just to comment generally, similar to crack_van used to introduce fandoms, and maybe do a TL;DR summary as we go if we're gonna work with chapters since, well, we're all adults and sometimes shit happens and you can't read a couple chapters, and I'd rather have people continue with us than not. Would this be fun for others or is this overthinking the concept?

I'm all for this idea and I'm hoping you all agree. <3 Looking forward to reading some ancient greek classics at the very least with you all. :D