“I’m going to read nothing but Homer + Homeric literature—and history 540-1200 AD until I finish my novel.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald, May 1924That little novel of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s turned out to be The Great Gatsby.What is so special about Homer? What makes this tale carry through the ages?According to Matthew Arnold, the Homeric Style has four characteristics:1) Rapidity2) Directness of Thought3) Plainness of Diction4) NoblenessEvery chapter has a tremendous amount of action in it. There aren’...

The Iliad; "a poem about Ilium (Troy)" is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. As with the Odyssey, the poem is divided into 24 books and was written in dactylic hexameter. It contains 15,693 lines in its most widely accepted version. Set towards the end of the Trojan War, a ten-year siege of the city of Troy by a coalition of Mycenaean Greek states, the poem depicts significant events in the siege's final weeks. In particular, the fierce quarrel between King Agamemnon ...

welcome to...THE APRILIAD!for those of you who are new here and do not yet feel the existential dread and heart-stopping moroseness that a title + month pun inspires in the hearts of many... 1) hi. and 2) you have been cursed to stumble upon yet another installment of PROJECT LONG CLASSICS, in which i divide up an intimidating book into skinny and appealing chunks, dispersed over the course of a month.in this case, this stems from one of my defining personality traits: pretending that someday i'...

as a native english speaker, im not exposed to translated books very often; so this reread is the first time where i have truly comprehended the significance of a translation and how it can either make or break a story. i first read parts of ‘the iliad’ back when i was in school and i just remember the text being very stiff and formal. it did not hold my attention at all because i couldnt understand it. but as i have come to love this story over the years (through retellings and other media), i ...

When I was just 2 years old, my grandmother sent me (from Utah to Central Canada), an LP of Prokofiev - against a storytime backdrop of The Trojan Horse - from the Iliad. The Trojan Horse comes at the conclusion of Homer's epic.Everyone knows the Iliad. And everyone talks about it here. But here, I only want to discuss one forgotten element of it. An element ESSENTIAL to constructing a valid modern worldview - for EACH of us.I always avoided applying this element to my daily life. But I was wron...

3½ starsTwo mysteries were solved by my finally finishing The Iliad. 1) It is so obvious why these Ancient Greek stories have survived for so many years-- it's all gory violence and sex. Homer tapped into these marketing tools early. 2) I now understand why puritanical attitudes toward female sexuality developed. Pretty much everything bad that happens is caused by Helen of Troy - "slut that I am" - running off with Paris, and Hera seducing Zeus. The ancients must have read this and been like "...

What I learned from this book (in no particular order):1. Victory or defeat in ancient Greek wars is primarily the result of marital spats and/or petty sibling rivalry in Zeus and Hera’s dysfunctional divine household.2. Zeus “the father of gods and men” is a henpecked husband who is also partial to domestic abuse.3. If you take a pretty girl who is the daughter of a priest of Apollo as war booty and refuse to have her ransomed, Apollo will rain plague on your troops. And he won’t be appeased un...

Pablo Picasso spent his entire life trying desperately to do something new, something unique. He moved from style to style, mastering and then abandoning both modern and classical methods, even trying to teach his trained artist's hand to paint like a child.In 1940, four French teens and a dog stumbled upon a cave that had lain hidden for 16,000 years. Inside, they found the walls covered in beautiful drawings of men and animals. When the Lascaux caves were opened to the public, Pablo Picasso vi...

Achilles - sexually ambiguous, rage-prone, has a sensitive tendon. Patroclus - 'best friend' of Achilles. Ruined everything for everyone. Odysseus - outsmarted the Trojans, had sex with a witch and a nymph. Agamemnon - worst husband, worst father, worst Greek, worst human. Menelaus - lost his wife, literally. Helen - the face that launched a thousand memes. Has the worst taste in men. Paris - the biggest fuckboy in Greek mythology. I don't condone child abuse, but I can see why his...

The Achilles!Oh, Achilles! Achilles! You steal every scene that you are in. You have made this my favorite poem of all time (and I love others).Your reputation for being stubborn, arrogant and hateful are conveniently brushed aside, precisely because the people that you kill are as misogynistic, brutal and violent as you.But you have your saving graces. You are humorous, but never humble. You are intelligent, but also ignorant and you are majestic as well as manly ( I don’t think of that as a po...