epic poetry and classical literature

johnnygothisgun · Post by **johnnygothisgun** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:05 pm

you boners should educate yourself and read the classics, or youre going to end up like haris one day

the first person to read the aeneid will get ten points

atoga · Post by **atoga** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:11 pm

classics like KoЯn - follow the leader

AnneGwish · Post by **AnneGwish** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:22 pm

The Aeneid was a bit slow. Virgil's good but I like Homer better. The Iliad and the Odyssey were more interesting, and Aeneas was a character taken from the Iliad initially anyways.

johnnygothisgun · Post by **johnnygothisgun** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:31 pm

many of the characters likely existed in myth and legend before homer told all of their stories together in one medium (lol), saying 'this came before that' is sort of silly in this context and akin to saying something like: jesus was in the bible before he was in the koran, therefore the bible is more interesting

i prefer the aeneid because i find aeneas to be an oft overlooked character who is more interesting than those found in homer (but i am in love with hector), also he doesnt try to score with dudes like achilles does

edit: anne +10 points

AnneGwish · Post by **AnneGwish** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 7:52 pm

Meh, wasn't mentioning it in a derisive manner, just establishing some sort of chronology to the literature, but it's honestly neither here nor there. Besides, I don't mind the thought of Achilles nailing another guy *laugh*

Virgil's story is good, I'm not trying to down it in the least I just preferred the other two. I've read far more torturous classics (like Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress") to try and say anything bad about the old epics.

My favorite epic by far though has got to be Beowulf.

Urizen · Post by **Urizen** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 8:13 pm

AnneGwish wrote:Meh, wasn't mentioning it in a derisive manner, just establishing some sort of chronology to the literature, but it's honestly neither here nor there. Besides, I don't mind the thought of Achilles nailing another guy *laugh*

Virgil's story is good, I'm not trying to down it in the least I just preferred the other two. I've read far more torturous classics (like Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress") to try and say anything bad about the old epics.

My favorite epic by far though has got to be Beowulf.

i hate you

SuperH · Post by **SuperH** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 8:14 pm

I don't like epic poems because of the total implausability - I mean, couldn't oddysseus have sent an email or text or at least rang his wife up on the tele to say "hey hon, I'll be a bite late, don't wait up?"

Urizen · Post by **Urizen** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 8:15 pm

SuperH wrote:I don't like epic poems because of the total implausability - I mean, couldn't oddysseus have sent an email or text or at least rang his wife up on the tele to say "hey hon, I'll be a bite late, don't wait up?"

and you too

VasikkA · Post by **VasikkA** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 8:30 pm

PsychoSniper wrote:Poetry sucks.

Blargh · Post by **Blargh** » Tue Mar 27, 2007 11:43 pm

johnnygothisgun wrote:haris

For most, the first step would be brain death.

As for the classics, I personally feel that DAC is not the pit in which I would muse upon and discuss such works. Doubtless you, as shall I, will bemoan this decision.

Image.

Post by **Dogmeatlives** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 12:07 am

The only epic i'm interested in is epic booty! Am I right fellas? or am i right?

vendetta · Post by **vendetta** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 2:23 am

I have some book written by Xenophon waiting to be read sometime. I'm not sure if it counts for Classic litt though, but it certainly got my attention for not being written in verse-form. That's what I hate most about Classical litterature; its complete archaic poem structure.

Some girl I met in Colombia last month was reading the Aeneid when she wasn't busy drinking or enjoying life down there. She has my respect, both for reading a long tedious phonebook and for being pretty, not nerdy-looking.

Frater Perdurabo · Post by **Frater Perdurabo** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 3:06 am

I love the works of Dostojevksy, Gogol, Chekhov, Kafka, Blugakov, etc. Besides Kafka, I haven't read any of them in original language, which is a bit meh, but a good translator is sufficient to make up for that.

johnnygothisgun · Post by **johnnygothisgun** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 4:17 am

vendetta wrote:I have some book written by Xenophon waiting to be read sometime. I'm not sure if it counts for Classic litt though, but it certainly got my attention for not being written in verse-form. That's what I hate most about Classical litterature; its complete archaic poem structure.

the only work ive read by xenophon is the anabasis, or persian expedition, or expedition of cyrus (different titles, same book). it was cool read, and a wonderful adventure. as a young man xenophon helped command a group of 10,000 greek mercenaries hired by a persian prince in an attempt to battle his brother, the king, for the persian throne. the prince was killed and all his forces save the greeks were defeated, and the greeks were forced to battle their way from babylon north to the black sea then west, back towards their homes and freedom. the book is his memoirs of the expedition, and its pretty neato

Subhuman · Post by **Subhuman** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 4:41 am

I tried to read Wuthering Heights once. I failed.

johnnygothisgun · Post by **johnnygothisgun** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:11 am

ok, uh, just to clarify, by classical literature i was actually referring to things written during the classical period

Subhuman · Post by **Subhuman** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:14 am

Fuck off with your rules.

vendetta · Post by **vendetta** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 5:15 am

johnnygothisgun wrote:the only work ive read by xenophon is the anabasis, or persian expedition, or expedition of cyrus (different titles, same book). it was cool read, and a wonderful adventure. as a young man xenophon helped command a group of 10,000 greek mercenaries hired by a persian prince in an attempt to battle his brother, the king, for the persian throne. the prince was killed and all his forces save the greeks were defeated, and the greeks were forced to battle their way from babylon north to the black sea then west, back towards their homes and freedom. the book is his memoirs of the expedition, and its pretty neato

It does actually sound good, so maybe I'll give it a go soon.

What was that book you were talking about a long time ago about Viet Nam soldiers having some kind of adventure? I want to read that one too.

johnnygothisgun · Post by **johnnygothisgun** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 6:28 am

going after cacciato by tim o'brien, heres a photo of the cover

some OH SHIT I HEAR THE ICE CREAM TRUCK!!!!!111!1111oneone on amazon wrote:

In Tim O'Brien's novel Going After Cacciato the theater of war becomes the theater of the absurd as a private deserts his post in Vietnam, intent on walking 8,000 miles to Paris for the peace talks. The remaining members of his squad are sent after him, but what happens then is anybody's guess: "The facts were simple: They went after Cacciato, they chased him into the mountains, they tried hard. They cornered him on a small grassy hill. They surrounded the hill. They waited through the night. And at dawn they shot the sky full of flares and then they moved in.... That was the end of it. The last known fact. What remained were possibilities."

It is these possibilities that make O'Brien's National Book Award-winning novel so extraordinary. Told from the perspective of squad member Paul Berlin, the search for Cacciato soon enters the realm of the surreal as the men find themselves following an elusive trail of chocolate M&M's through the jungles of Indochina, across India, Iran, Greece, and Yugoslavia to the streets of Paris. The details of this hallucinatory journey alternate with feverish memories of the war--men maimed by landmines, killed in tunnels, engaged in casual acts of brutality that would be unthinkable anywhere else. Reminiscent of Joseph Heller's Catch-22, Going After Cacciato dishes up a brilliant mix of ferocious comedy and bleak horror that serves to illuminate both the complex psychology of men in battle and the overarching insanity of war.

i wrote my own review in high school but i dont want to give you a bias so ill just leave it at this one

edit: the cover photo is probably too small to see but its funny, if you examine a copy of the book the men pictured on the hill appear to be vietnamese, not americans, which is a peculiar inconsistency because the characters imagined in that scene were soldiers of the american army, not arvn forces. :overanalyzation:

Fa11lloutfan_15 · Post by **Fa11lloutfan_15** » Wed Mar 28, 2007 9:42 am

While I am quite fond of the Roman authors, especially Tacitus, the Greeks have somehow begun to disgust me lately. I'm doing a paper right now about platonic love etc. and so I can no longer read a Greek author without passing into the idea that everything was written solely to justify fucking little boys. And it's really not the homosexuality I find revolting but that they couldn't do it upright, like the Romans lusted for blood and power and did so honourably and found justification in their own power, but instead had to invent an "ideal, true world" in which - of course completely by chance - their altogether material, natural, bodily desires were the finest form of love. Good thing the Romans brought an end to it and absorbed only the best.

Duck and Cover

epic poetry and classical literature

epic poetry and classical literature

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