Great Literature

[sharplittleteeth]

So. Started reading the Illiad. Foundation stone of Western literature. Epic tale of tradegy and war.

Except I can't stop thinking that godlike Agamemon and swift-footed Archilles are squabbling like little children over their respective sex slaves.

It's... disturbing.

But I guess 2700 years of cultural differences will do that to you.

Comments

[drzero.livejournal.com]

Heh, it's funny what a little perspective will do.

As Dennis Miller once pointed out, the people writing the American Declaration of Independence, from whence we get the phrase "the all men are created equal", still used slave labour on their plantations...

[paracelsus.livejournal.com]

Well, even though I'm someone who believes the Iliad is the greatest work of Western epic literature extant, I have to agree with you. There's something sad in the loss of such godlike emotions, the idea that the bloodlines of the captured women make them prizes beyond measure, and that modern machine-warfare has nothing of the grandeur of the struggle of the long-haired Danaans against the horse-taming Trojans.

But the idea that some people are just made better than others, that there is an unchallengeable superiority about the ruling class, the heroes or demigods, just doesn't fit with modern ideas (although it crops up plenty in western imperialism to prove that patriotism is the least discerning of the passions). Plus their heroic squabbling is kind of pathetic as you point out (the Argives are only there because Menelaus' wife ran off with another guy anyway), and you can see why cloud-compelling Zeus planned this war specifically to get rid of the lot of them.

One book that really gave me a new perspective on the Iliad and simply awed me with its beauty was Roberto Calasso's The Marriage of Cadmus and Harmony. If you're interested, I should have a copy around somewhere.

[sharplittlteeth.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Sounds interesting. Let me finish the Homer first, though.

The internet has fucked my reading skills.