
Growing Up with the Odyssey - diodorus
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/08/07/growing-up-with-the-odyssey/
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cpr
I always read the Odyssey (I think the Fitzgerald translation) to my younger
high-school age kids (in batches) as part of our home education efforts (8
kids, from birth through high school) and the power and paradoxically absolute
modernity of Homer's characters (human nature is unchanging) always held their
attention quite well, and was, I hope, rewarding.

Of course, Fitzgerald points out that, no matter the power of the translation,
something is seriously lost by not reading the original Greek. One of the
sadnesses of the limitations of a chosen life...

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lvoudour
>Of course, Fitzgerald points out that, no matter the power of the
translation, something is seriously lost by not reading the original Greek.
One of the sadnesses of the limitations of a chosen life

I'm greek and I still can't read the original, Homer's language is very
difficult. I can only imagine how hard it must be for people with no exposure
to any form of the Greek language

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gglitch
As a point of clarification, are you saying that Homeric Greek is difficult
for a native speaker of Modern Greek, or are you saying that, objectively
speaking, Homeric is a fundamentally more difficult language to use? I took
two semesters of Attic about a million years ago and one of my romantic
aspirational goals is to learn Homeric enough to enjoy the Iliad in the
original.

~~~
pjungwir
I'm not Greek although I have a lot of a Greek friends. I taught myself
ancient Greek and can (barely) communicate in modern. I'd say that ancient
Greek is about as far from modern as Chaucer is from modern English. Even
Greeks can't understand it without study, although of course knowing modern
helps a ton. Just a few decades ago, all Greeks spoke Demotiki (modern Greek
or "people's" Greek) but also learned Katharevousa in school ("pure" Greek,
very close to ancient Greek). They don't teach that any more, but some of my
friends say their parents can read Plato like it's the morning newspaper. How
envious I am of that! :-)

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lvoudour
>Just a few decades ago, all Greeks spoke Demotiki (modern Greek or "people's"
Greek) but also learned Katharevousa in school ("pure" Greek, very close to
ancient Greek). They don't teach that any more, but some of my friends say
their parents can read Plato like it's the morning newspaper. How envious I am
of that! :-)

That's correct, but _katharevousa_ was nowhere close to ancient Greek, it was
really a bastardized language created to sound more ancient-y in an era when
the nation was searching for identity (Greece was heading for its revolution
against the Ottomans).

But it was forced and unnatural. There's an era around the turn of the 20th
century where many prominent scholars, poets and novelists formed a movement
against it but nationalistic reasons (and thick headed archaists) made it
stick until the 70's.

It's true that previous generations (like my parents') had a better classical
education, but that has nothing to do with katharevousa

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pjungwir
All my knowledge of this history is second-hand, so thank you for correcting
me! :-)

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ninjamayo
I was lucky enough to read and understand the Odyssey in ancient Greek and
realize how beautiful it is. I always felt that it has really kick-started my
part of the brain that imagines and dreams. Translations are great but if you
could ever read such a masterpiece in its original language you would do
yourself a favour. Kinda of like learning Lisp one day :).

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Jun8
The Canon, esp. Ancient Greek works used to hold much more sway over the
intellectual psyche, which they no longer have, so much so that in the second
half of 20th century it was suggested to rename Joyce's _Ulysses_ _Hamlet_ ,
to recreate the boldness of having the title laid against a well-known book.
Wilson was born in 1971 so the play she's reminiscing here was done around
1979.

I think suggesting to put together such a play for grade school would be
absurd, even in the relatively affluent Chicago public school that my son goes
to. Many of the otherwise well-educated parents would hardly be acquainted
with the book!

~~~
ashark
That's a shame, since one's understanding of so much of Western art of all
sorts is greatly improved by familiarity with: 1) the Bible, and 2) a dozen or
so Greek and Roman authors, including and especially Homer. By losing that
foundation one engages with pretty much the entire body of Western art at a
huge disadvantage. It's a kind of common language of symbols, tropes, and
allusions that bind the whole thing together, without which much is lost.

~~~
gglitch
We live in an age of cultural abundance. There are many paths and you can't
walk them all.

~~~
ashark
Well, yeah, but a great deal of said cultural abundance assumes you've got a
pretty strong familiarity with the Bible and a few classical authors. You're
gonna be losing a lot from a pretty big chunk of Western art up the Moderns or
so, and still quite a bit after, without that foundation, so by skipping out
on that _not even that large_ set of works you're giving up on serious
engagement with _most of_ Western art. It'll be a minefield of confusion and
things you miss without even knowing they're there. Summaries and retellings
won't cut it, since _good_ references to those works will lean on nuance
that's not usually present in "bare bones" or cultural-osmosis versions of the
tales (the linked article covers some of this, in fact), to the point that
making such references that assume _only_ a kind of pop-culture understanding
of these things tends to be a mark of _poor_ , pseudo-intellectual, trying-
too-hard art.

As far as things to skip due to an abundance of choices go, those are perhaps
_unwise_ ones to avoid, if some part of the other "paths" you'll walk include
pretty much any other areas of Western art.

Maybe you decide your "path" is 19th century French literature. Guess which
two bodies of work are foundational to that? OK, so you just like sci-fi.
Well, there are the Bible and the Classical writers again, at least in the
better stuff. Medieval studies? Yeah, obviously. Film—like, pretty much any of
it that comes from the West and has artistic value? Oh god, yes.

Well screw all this, I'm gonna focus on Arabic or Persian works. Oh. They have
significant cultural ties to the Greeks too, thanks to Alexander, so I'm back
to that again.

Fine art. There aren't even words so I'm safe there. Oh, wait, no I'm not.
Damn. Music? Ugh, there's Achilles and Abraham and Aeneas and all the rest.
Philosophy? Nope, too much of that assumes the same common, smallish set of
common experience as everything else.

OK, fine, I'm so over this, I'm just gonna play video games. This Deux Ex
thing is supposed to be good for some reason, let's start there. Oh... oh
no... not again!

~~~
gglitch
I feel you. You're preaching to the choir here - I narrowly dodged majoring in
classics myself, and my particular brand of virtue signaling is to rave about
how much better the Lattimore is than the Fagles. But many of the leaves are
now quite far from the root, and many of them are on other trees altogether.
Studying foundational anthropological art and literature would no doubt accrue
immense sociocultural benefits to, yeah, anyone, and to be sure, I can't wait
to do Homer with my kid. But if other interests crowd out the roots, I'm sure
he'll be fine, and so will the tree.

