I'm very new at literature but been wanting to get into philosophy. I read Mythology by Edith Hamilton in preparation for Homer, but now that I'm looking to read The Iliad I got a question
For someone uncultured as meself, should I go for prose or verse? I do believe verse would be way harder to read for me, I've never read any poetry really, but I don't know if a lot is lost by reading prose, so I'd appreciate some advise. Thanks anons
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Robert Graves
>Homer
>philosophy
You're moronic
I wanna get into the greeks and after researching this seems to be a great starting point. This is obviously not philosophy yet, but an introduction to Greece
But even if I believed Homer was philosophy it wouldn't make me moronic anon, just ignorant, and your post couldn't be further away from being helpful
Also yeah, Homer is really good for getting into Greek literature. I myself started by reading the Odyssey.
Go for prose. Verse is harder. You can always get a verse translation after that.
I remember seeing a copy if the illiad in the philosphy section once, also in the poetry and universal literature sections elsewhere.
Greek philosphy and greek culture are different. Plato was not a very greek spirited person, i mean they killed socrates so that goes to show how they felt about that.
Plato would be pretty accessible for a beginner because he inspired so much of our modern world so you'd be familiar with his stuff. I would suggest u start with an introduction to the presocratics and then go to plato, if you want to read more stoics you can just get into that rn they're not that hard.
>Plato was not a very greek spirited person, i mean they killed socrates so that goes to show how they felt about that.
Meaningless thing to say. Plato himself was not killed and his students were widely admired and powerful, unlike Socrates' (not even plato himself was important)
>i mean they killed socrates so that goes to show how they felt about that
Socrates may not have even existed. He was obviously used as a character for the purpose of Plato's dialogues, so it's not unreasonable to believe Plato just made him up.
ok, let me reply seriously.
For an introduction to Greece read Homer, then go to academia.edu and look up many papers about whatever subject on them you want. Read papers who fight with each other too
Then go read all ancient dna studies about ancient Greece. You won't get anywhere with books about mythology or whatever, and most are inaccurate anyway
You are moronic because you took seriously the memeposters saying to read homer before plato. You don’t know how to filter bullshit.
You should read Homer before Plato because then when you see Plato going on about how Homer is doubleplusungood and should be banned, you’ll realize that philosophy is a meme and get out before you’ve wasted too much time on it.
The text is the same, only difference is that the prose fills the whole page, but I'd go for verse. I just think it's nicer.
Know that Homeric verse works fundamentally differently from English verse. By selecting a verse translation you are effectively selecting a different poet's adaptation, which may not correspond line to line with the original at all. Some poets to take up this task, however, have been skilled in their own right.
Prose translations, on the other hand, are all variously detailed summaries. So pick your poison.
If you struggle with verse, I would consider your soul dangerously malnourished and encourage you to pick up Shakespeare's Sonnets and spend a couple hundred hours reading them as closely as possible. But you seem to have your own goals of reading Homer as a background for Plato. That's a coherent and even respectable goal, so either a prose translation or the highly plain and readable Emily Wilson translation should do.
>inb4 cringe woman translation
Nowhere is it less accurate than any other. Fitzgerald's language is certainly of a higher register, but does not even begin to transmit the sublimity of the Greek either. Wilson's translation is exceedingly clear, which makes it suitable here.
Wilson translation isn't Homer lol, she literally adds parts that don't exist and switches words with totally different ones
females can't into Homer, it's purely for men
Idk anything about Wilson but Lattimore’s translations are very neutral, they don’t use language that artificially either inflates or deflates the drama and emotional charge of the story, which is the main thing I cared about in selecting a translation.
>I wanna start with the greeks
>picks up something written by a woman
This won't go well.
Sing now, goddess, the wrath of Achilles the scion of Peleus,
ruinous rage which brought the Achaians uncounted afflictions;
many the powerful souls it sent to the dwelling of Hades,
those of the heroes, and spoil for the dogs it made of their bodies,
plunder for all of the birds, and the purpose of Zeus was accomplished--
sing from the time when first stood hostile, starting the conflict,
Atreus' scion, the lord of the people, and noble Achilles.
Which of the gods brought strife to the two men, and set them fighting?
It was the offspring of Leto and Zeus, for enraged at the king, he
roused in the army a baneful disease, and the people were slaughtered,
all on account of his priest, whom Atreus' scion dishonored,
Chryses. For he had arrived at the swift ships of the Achaians,
seeking to free his daughter and bringing a measureless ransom,
bearing in hand bay-garlands of great far-shooting Apollo
wound on a gold-wrought staff, and he pled with them, all the Achaians,
but above all the two scions of Atreus, marshals of people:
Read the gayles edition. If you listen to an audiobook go for the Lattimore edition.
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
Round many western islands have I been
Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
That deep-brow'd Homer ruled as his demesne;
Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
When a new planet swims into his ken;
Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
He star'd at the Pacific—and all his men
Look'd at each other with a wild surmise—
Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
hello my fellow classicists. Im usually not one for rp, but the guy running this trojan war quest is doing an exceptional job and I feel obligated to shill on his behalf. Seriously it's good fun
apparently the best translation is richmond lattimore's one.