/SWTG/ 2.0 PLANNING THREAD

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Also, I believe we will resume with the romans?

Plato please

>>8966661
When do you propose we start Plato?

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>>8966666

>>8966666

Holy cow, nice get.

I think before we can answer that question, we have to establish the 'roadmap' of presocratics we'll be focusing on

>>8966737
I, personally, would love to read of the Seven Sages

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>>8966546
>no Thucydides

>>8966786
we'll add, then. So far we have Plato requested and Thucydides.

What works?

I was looking at some MIT OpenCourseWare syllabi for inspiration:

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/experimental-study-group/es-113-ancient-greek-philosophy-and-mathematics-spring-2016/readings/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/linguistics-and-philosophy/24-200-ancient-philosophy-fall-2004/readings/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/history/21h-301-the-ancient-world-greece-fall-2004/readings/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-001x-foundations-of-world-culture-i-world-civilizations-and-texts-fall-2011/readings/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-012-forms-of-western-narrative-spring-2004/readings/
https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/literature/21l-001-foundations-of-western-culture-homer-to-dante-fall-2008/syllabus/

Should we start with The Epic of Gilgamesh? It's not Greek, but it is part of the foundation of western literature.

We could start by reading a short introduction to Mythology like

>Classical Mythology: A Very Short Introduction (144 pages)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0192804766/

>Mythology 101: From Gods and Goddesses to Monsters and Mortals, Your Guide to Ancient Mythology (288 pages)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1440573328

>Classical Mythology: The Basics (184 pages)
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0415715032/

Also:

>Thucydides' History of the Peloponnesian War (at least excerpts?)
>Herodotus' Histories (at least excerpts)

Will post more thoughts later.

*raises paw*

I'm in.

>>8966792
Book 6&7 of Thucydides' History. We could cut it down to the more important parts if necessary, but this is the section that raises the big questions.
The Melian Dialogue would also be pretty cash.

>>8966546
I'm in and a lot more hyped for this than I should be

Hope it all works out

Also I didn't realize OP had an actual background in teaching classics. That's pretty good

Also the closer we stick to one of the charts, the easier this will be to organize I expect. So we should look to that at least as guidance if not gospel

>>8966826
I am too. I hope this doesn't go south. Really looking forward to discussion with you guys.

Do you mind posting the typical Greek chart here? I don't have it.

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>>8966839
Here's one...

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>>8966851
... And here's two

>>8966851
>>8966858

Neat.
http://www.strawpoll.me/12094948

take this to show me where you guys want to be.

I'm in too.

>>8966871
I'd say background + The Epic of Gilgamesh, which forms part of the foundation of western literature and precedes Homer.

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>>8966666
Whoa, nice dude.

OP I was in the last thread and I honestly couldn't tell if the Edith Hamilton's Mythology posts were trolling. I do not think the Iliad is a difficult text to research on your own, and a group reading of Mythology is utterly pointless. Most people have to read it in high school, it's short, it takes little reflection/ group analysis. There is nothing complex, there is no interesting discussion to be had, unlike the books that we tend to do group readings on. I made a bunch of points in that post trying to defend starting with the Iliad, which I think was a great idea.

The supplementary texts and amount of information on greek mythology are both accessible (in an intellectual sense of the word) and WIDELY prevelant, not to mention generally disseminated culturally in the west.

Sorry that that happened.

>>8966920
I'll see about Gilgamesh. Start looking for online sources if serious about taking that up, I'll try too myself

>>8967080
I honestly thought so too. No student of mine has ever been so clueless as to recognize who "son of Cronus" is. But I do not want to be rude to those who are not well versed in such topics.

I would like to get right into the Iliad again and try through the canon. It just depends on how many we have that are struggling to recognize the names and references

>>8967112
I like Stephen Mitchell's English version of the Gilgamesh epic. It's only 130 pages of double-spaced verse excluding the introduction.

>Not reading Homeric Hymns
>Not reading the Pre-socratics
>Not reading Pindar
>Not reading Aesop
>Not reading Euclid, Pythagoras and other Greek Mathematicians
>Not reading Fragments of Poetry

I think an understanding of Ancient Greece is important to understanding their literature. MIT's course on "The Ancient World: Greece" uses The Routledge History of the Ancient World:

>Greece In the Making, 1200-479 BC by Robin Osborne (400 pages)
>The Greek World 479-323 BC by Simon Hornblower (434 pages)

Other texts:

>Ancient Greece: A Very Short Introduction (216 pages)
>The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece by Josiah Ober (448 pages)
>Introducing the Ancient Greeks by Edith Hall (336 pages)
>A Brief History of Ancient Greece: Politics, Society, and Culture by Sarah B. Pomeroy (416 pages)
>The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome by Susan Wise Bauer (896 pages)

>>8967167
this is nice, as I've used some of these in class, but some are a bit expensive and I don't want this group to have to be pay to participate, so to speak.

That said, if one of you finds a torrent, post it here. I'm hardly torrent-literate, I'm afraid, but I will learn.

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>>8966546
What if I'm too dumb for the classics. I started reading Les miserables and I was never able to finish it

I've read Iliad and Odyssey. Also the trojan horse one

I know most of the gods but what are some other accessible Greek stories like the ones I said

>>8967179
Every book I have named I can share the ebook of, so that is no problem. Bookzz and gen.lib.rus.ec have all of them.

>>8967195
>I've read Iliad and Odyssey. Also the trojan horse one

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>>8967195
>Also the trojan horse one

please leave this thread

>>8967195
>>8967202
>>8967209

Nice chuckle boys. No worries anon. Now's your chance to hop along your path to enlightenment.

>>8967197
This is absolutely wonderful. If that is the case, I would feel wrong not to delve into such works with you guys :)

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I seriously don't like the idea of background reading. We're not college students, a rudimentary understanding of Ancient Greece from skimming wikipedia or whatever is more than enough to understand the Iliad.

The supplementary material should be optional. Having to read 800 pages of history is going to put off all the potential newcomers and besides, our imperfect understanding of Ancient Greece also helps to fuel discussion.

Realistically speaking, I don't expect more than 10 people to take part in this. The current thread for the War and Peace reading group has 15 IPs. I doubt we will even have 5 when we're halfway through the Greeks which collectively are a lot longer than W&P. So let's not discourage newcomers with boring history books.

random question, which philosopher proposed the idea of time as a strung out infinite sequence? i want to say it was someone in response to Zeno's paradoxes but I could be misremembering

>>8967567
This is exactly what I've thought as well, but a large portion of people last thread whined about it. I'm right there with you.

Nothing to contribute except to say Im in, never participated in a /lit/ reading group before so im excited, especially since the Greeks are so fundamental! I actually have some pre req material to read to keep occupied until we lauch so some hype material!

One question though, my semester starts on monday, my free time is quite low with a physics undergrad, will i be able to keep up with this reading group with say 5 hrs of free time to read per week or will i need to find more time?

>>8966546
>What translation of Iliad?
>Due to being translated, it will not matter much.
What sort of classics teacher are you OP

>>8968343
1 hour per day to keep with the schedule

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Just picked these up 15 min ago, i'm somewhat ready to begin with the greeks

I suppose I am in, was planning on reading Mythology first but maybe I can read both at the same time

>>8968353
so i have to find 2 more hours in my week, ty anon

>>8968347
Anon, the Iliads translations, in all my years, have all been relatively the same

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This format is anachronistic. We're on a real-time web forum, not a women's library.

>There is a certain kind of thoroughness which is but the excuse for inactivity. Think of what Goethe understood about antiquity: certainly not as much as any classicist, and yet quite enough to enable him to engage in fruitful struggle with it. One -should- not, in fact, know more about a thing than one can oneself digest creatively. Moreover the only means of truly understanding something is one's attempt to -do- it. Let us try to live in the manner of the ancients – and we shall instantly come a hundred miles closer to them than with all our learnedness. Our classicists nowhere demonstrate that they somehow strive to vie with antiquity; that is why -their- antiquity is without any effect on the schools.
-Nietzsche

Be a teacher, not a medium, OP: have a purpose, select, excerpt, interpret; focus on the living types. Use links, ebooks, images, video, memes. Asceticism is decadence: making it essential not to be left behind at the start, slogging through lengthy material without a goal (except '_ in itself'), making a dichotomy between context and works. A mishmash of university and leisurely reading.

Why not make the Greeks /lit/'s own, if you genuinely want to teach? All I can foresee here is indigestion and deaths.

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>>8968475

Yo need more ppl in on this

>>8970178
there will be more soon. All the groups are coming done. I would be happy with even 10 people

I'm in. Seems like a great list. I'd like to see at least one more lyric poet though. It might be interesting to have someone to compare Sappho with.

>>8967195
Maybe is he referring to the aeneid? The trojan horse does make a cameo there.

What would sex with Aphrodite be like?

Any recommendations on critical commentary of the Iliad and/or the Odyssey?

>>8966546
OP, don't let them start on Aristophanes until they've read some Plato. And then don't move on from Plato until they've read Xenophon's Socrates to compare.

And how the hell are you going to get all the way to Aristophanes before introducing any history? Thucydides is boring as hell to most non-classicists, but I think everyone can enjoy Herodotus, plus the Solon/Croesus bits get referenced throughout Western literature.

>sorry if these points were already made; I am about to close 4chan and didn't have time to read the thread

Keep it up there boys

Are we okay with starting next Friday? Does this give everyone time to get the book/download it and make room in schedules?

>>8972326
I'm good for next Friday, gives the weekend to get a good start. Are we doing 2 books a day or less this time?

>>8970446
Divine.

>>8972392
I was aiming for the two a day, but we need to discuss this. Also, we'll make up a schedule

>>8972910
I would prefer 1 a day but if everyone else is okay with 2 I'm cool with it

>>8972987
they're easy reads, they shouldn't be too hard to plow through and each is only 30-50 pages

>>8972997
Yeah that's fine man, sometimes just get a bunch of uni work and end up a day behind

Would like to read the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid soon. Which translations would you all suggest and why? I don't want to buy Fagles just because it's the one in the chart.

I've never read any epic poetry before. Is the style easy to get used to?

>>8973336
Yeah. You'll be fine. There's less focus on pure form than in most other forms of poetry, so even if you dislike poetry in general you should still be able to get something from epic poetry, which, at least in its classical form, is as narrative as most novels

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OP, you still there?

Any recommendations for commentary on the Iliad and Odyssey?

>>8976006
In the back of Fagles' Iliad is a list of suggested reading. However I'm not sure which of them is best.

>>8976006
I have tons my man. I'll post en soon

>>8977227
I found a few as ebooks. How are the recs coming?

>>8967167
I thought the Edith Hamilton's book was going to be shit and I'm glad I was wrong.

It's a treat.

>>8966780
Their texts don't exist anymore, if they ever did. This is like saying "I want to read Socrates." If you want to read about the seven sages, Dioegenes Laertius is probably your best bet, and there are some scraps in Diodorus Siculus.

>>8967148
The Homeric Hymns are fine if you want more mythology and want to read more """Homer"""

Pindar is good but repetitive

Aesop is good but not significantly "Greek"

The mathematicians are insignificant to read

Agree with you on the poetry, Oxford's "Greek lyric poetry" has a solid collection; Sappho would be worth reading more fully.

>>8976006
"The world of Odysseus"
"War and the Iliad"
Cambridge companion to Homer

t. Greek/Roman fanboy, might reread Homer with you guys but otherwise will just be peeking in and giving advice/recs if desired.

>>8979480
Thanks. Apparently an essay called "The Iliad or the Poem of Force" is also really good.

>>8979540
Yeah that's one of the essays contained in "war and the iliad."

>>8970231
im new to this
how will you teach us?

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tfw know ancient greek but at a tree sloth's reading speed

Anyway this sounds cool I'm in. I never actually read much in the language or in translation.

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I want in! Though I will be doing my reading in my mother tongue, sorry.

>>8980452
Get an easier translation then dumbass

>>8966546
Ok, I'm in. Sounds great.

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>>8980452
>tfw I can't read these books in my Native language and have to read them in English instead.

And yes, they are translated to my native language

>>8979480
What do you mean Aesop isn't "significantly Greek?"

Bump!

So what book do we start with? And what history book or companion book we should we read along with?

>>8968365
Mythology is very easily digested, reading both at the same time wouldn't be difficult at all.

>>8973071
>I don't want to buy Fagles
Fagles is really good though

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Hello /lit/
Why does will not contract into won't instead of win't

Any idea on start date? Excited for this btw

Nobody resolved this >>8968475

>>8982731
The Iliad.

I'll post a mega that /his/ has that has TONS of background for those who care

>>8983354
I'm hoping this upcoming friday. Gives people enough time to get their books and such, and also waits for the other large groups to fade away to this one

Iliad is kickass. You guys are gonna love it. Can we discuss scheduling? What's it going to look like?

>>8983445
go away you meme

>>8981174
His fables are great (definitely not suggesting otherwise), but there is little in them to give insight into specifically Greek culture. They tend to be much more general stories with stronger links to folk tales across the world than to other Greek works.

I'm currently on book 4 of the Iliad and book 3 of Gilgamesh (Michell's translation).

Iliad is so much better, and I'm not even reading that great of a translation (Lombardo, because I like Hackett)

>>8985161
The first time I read the Gilgamesh epic I found it rather boring and uninspired. Then I read it another time years later, Mitchell's English version, and it came alive to me. And reading his introduction helped me a lot to gain even deeper understanding of it.

It might take more than one read to appreciate, and perhaps some time in between.

Know that you are holding and reading one of the first stories ever written down in this universe. A story from a civilization that is vastly different from our own, but filled with people who too sought meaning in life and death, and through mythology, through this epic, came to try to understand their role on Earth.

I just finished the Iliad, do I go directly to the homeric hymns or The Odyssey?

>>8985895
Also I'm thinking about getting some secondary literature, but I'm not really sure how "necessary" it would be for Homer since Fagles gave a really good introduction.

Usually I'll get a companion reader if it's something really hard to digest.

Fuck me. I hate choice.

I would like to start with the Greeks but I wish there was one globally accepted reading order including secondary texts. All the different opinions in this thread make my head hurt.

>>8986229
Secondary literature must come from what the reader is interested in about a text, it can't be proscribed from above.

>>8986229
Secondary reading is unnecessary if you have a brain and know how to use google.

>>8986613
Agreed. The works of Simone Weil and M.I. Finley are of no consequence to anyone with a brain.

>>8986613
Secondary reading LISTS are unnecessary, but a good book will always be more informative then what you can find on a google search

>>8985895
>>8985911
Read the Odyssey next. Homer almost certainly didn't write the "Homeric" Hymns; even not considering authorship, they're on a very different stylistic level than Iliad/Odyssey, and are best read as secondary to the main epics. With that said, if you like Homer, definitely read the Hymns. They're of varying quality, but are a quick read and some (Hymn to Hermes especially IMO) are very funny.

Fagles' introduction is great. If you want to read secondary stuff in depth, consider what I mentioned above >>8979480, but IMO your intro is totally sufficient for a first reading of Homer; maybe read more when you revisit him eventually.

>>8986229
A big point of "starting with the Greeks" is developing the skills to gather, sift through, and judge between many different sources. The Greeks are relatively simple in that regard, since there isn't TOO much primary content, and wading through it will give you the experience you need to better tackle later historical periods/major literary sources/new genres. You CAN brute force the Greeks and just read effectively everything; you can't do that with modern historical sources, with modern literature, etc. There's just too much to look at. You need to develop the skills to be judicious, to be able to say "This might be a bit interesting but isn't worth the time it would take; I'll look for a more directly relevant source."

Case in point, the comment I just made to the anon considering secondary sources on Homer. Is it worth reading 15+ essays in a 400 page Cambridge Companion if you just snapped shut the Iliad? Probably not. Probably you'd get more out of digesting Homer and rereading him (maybe in a different translation). Probably you'd get more out of reading some intro histories of Greece, reading some Hesiod to peek into the "little brother" great epic poet, or even some other genres of Greek writing to get a better handle on the culture, ideals, way of life, etc.

The point of the Greeks is not (only) to know "the Greeks." It's to be able to abstract from them, to grasp universal historical themes from their histories, universal literary themes from their poetry, and universal facets of human nature and the human condition from their way of life.

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>>8986675
Very good post, thanks senpai

>>8987530
That anon is completely fucking retarded so don't listen to him.

>>8987564
Argue against my points then m8

I welcome the discussion

Were Achilles and Patroclus gay for each other???

>>8988134
why would you delete a shitpost m8

>>8988134
No they just loved each other and had sex with each other.

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>>8966653
i'm in

What edition or translation of the anabasis should I read?

>>8988248
Because I'm being sincere ya dingus

>>8988284
Fuck I hate how not thorough that list is.

I know it's designed to mirror the Greek list which is (by necessity) comparatively brief, but please keep in mind there's way more Roman content to branch out to than there is Greek content (as compared with their respective charts).

>>8988257
His grief over Patroclus was so great it overwrote his rage against Agamemnon. That's pretty gay tbqh

>>8988301
my man i'm pretty sure the entirety of roman literature is compiled in this list, you don't need anything else ;)

I'm pretty sure these lists are just filled with the basics to whet you're appetite for the roman stuff, naturally as you read you will probably get an idea of what else is out there.

Keeping in mind these lists are memes

>>8988284
Needs Plutarch, Plotinus

>>8988284
>>8988328
And Lucretius

>>8988317
Had me going until the smiley face.

You're right of course; the difference being that for the Greek chart there really isn't THAT much outside of the chart to read. Some minor poets, some more Xenophon, but that's really it.

With Rome you could spend the next year reading nothing but Cicero. The volume of contemporary writing that survived is just outrageous compared to classical Greece. So my objection isn't that the chart is wrong (it serves as just as good an intro as the Greek chart), but that the Greek chart may have gotten some people used to the idea that these charts are supposed to be at all thorough.

I'm reading Theaetetus for an introductory philosophy class, and I'm struggling with it desu. It's my first time reading any philosophical work, and my first time reading anything abstract. It takes me nearly 10 minutes to read 2 pages and grasp what's being said. Do any of you have any advice to comprehend this better? Or am I just mildly retarded?

>>8988333
There's a bunch of Hellenistic stuff everyone forgets about. Menander's two mostly complete plays, Argonautica...

>>8988345
-Don't be discouraged by the pace. Especially if you're new to Plato or philosophy in general, it can be disheartening to compare 50+page/hour speeds for fiction to what often ends up being a mere 5-10 for philosophy. 12 pages per hour for Theaetetus is actually pretty good for a beginner; I remember getting down to like 6 pages per hour during Parmenides.

-Take notes as you read, IN YOUR BOOK if you're not totally opposed to marking it up. Get comfy underlining and bracketing and jotting down margin comments. The book is a vehicle for your understanding, not some relic which needs to be preserved pristinely. If you can do anything to increase your understanding even at the cost of the book's neatness, do it.

-Read it twice. It's annoying but hugely helpful to see the bits and pieces again once you've already become familiar with the whole that they're working to construct.

-If you're up for it, write a summary in a separate notebook. Whenever I read Plato, I did a first readthrough with notes/underlining like I suggested above, and then my second readthrough wouldn't be complete, but would only be a reading of my bracketed/underlined passages (these were usually huge chunks, and certainly the most important ones, but helped cast off the easier details for a quicker and more coherent revisiting of the material). On that second reading I'd jot down a summary in a notebook, which (a) was much easier on the second reading, since I knew what role every passage was supposed to play, (b) helped my immediate comprehension because I couldn't just gloss over a passage I didn't "get," and (c) helped recall, since I had a summary to revisit and brush up with later on.

-Read a secondary commentary/summary or two. If you're going to read a lot of Plato, especially in an academic context, I heavily recommend the continuum companion to Plato at least for its brief summaries of all the dialogues. PDF here, but the print copy is 100% worth the $40:

https://mega.nz/#!iUEBjSib!k5RPEGONSV342SBXIn99lkcN6sJny3cp-LLG8lsC8Og

Also a more thorough summary of the dialogues (really the most thorough treatment of them I've ever seen, and a still widely-respected one) is AE Taylor's "Plato: the man and his work." Its summary of Theatetus is about 30 pages to Continuum's mere 2 or 3 pages. Unfortunately there's no ebook available that I know of, but used copies are fairly common on abebooks/ebay. If you're interested, I could photograph and upload a pdf of the Theatetus chapter, but again it's worth the hardcopy (even moreso than the Continuum, since there's no ebook alternative). Let me know!

>>8988378
Yeah that's a good point; I've never read those, myself.

>>8988398
Greatly appreciated. Thank you.

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Lads I literally just finished the illiad for the first time, and while I can appreciate homer's choice to end it at the burial of Hector I can't be the only one bummed that he left out the fall of Troy itself, with Achilles heel and he wooden horse. If it didn't come from Homer how did Edith Hamilton have such a specific recount of what happened after Hectors funeral?

>>8988700
Because the story exists before and beyond Homer. Read the Epic Fragments, the Posthomerica, and the Aeneid.

>>8988700

>how did Edith Hamilton have such a specific recount of what happened after Hectors funeral?

What the fuck are you talking about? Hamilton prefaces every one of her mythic accounts with a summary of the sources she's deriving it from. She even includes details on which specific aspects of the story

Bal in all fields

Sounds great, my old latin and philosophy teacher would be proud of me.

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>>8989993
Nice for you to join us this evening Bal

Cosh