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So after a few months of reading this while on the shitter, I'm close to finishing it. I'm reading the Fagles translation and I've gotta say that although it's been pretty enjoyable at times, I've not really been "grabbed" by it and I've never felt compelled to keep my ass planted to the toilet seat and risk getting haemorrhoids just to get to the next chapter.
This leads me to a broad question. I get that many people start with the Greeks, read classic texts and all that hooey just for the sake of 'completionism' and historical context: e.g. "at last I have read the Greeks, maybe now I will have street creed" or "a ha! so that's where those references came from!", but which of the classic texts remain legitimately enjoyable outside of their important historical context?
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All of them desu, but you'll probably like Aristophanes.
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>>9315930
who dat nigga?
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I hope you have a horrible life and your mother gets cancer.
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>>9316546
Keep your embarrassing histrionics to yourself my man.
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>>9316661
I hope you have a child and he dies before you.
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>>9316714
rude tbqh
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The Histories by Herodotus are quite entertaining if that's what you're looking fo
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>Oh man some gods are doing shit
>What a neato battle, huh?
>Oh no this dude you don't know died ;((
>Man better set some oxen on fire
How can anyone say this book is better than the odyssey?
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>>9317122
desu from the bits of Odysseus mentioned in the Iliad I'm really looking forward to checking out The Odyssey. He seemed more interesting than Achilles, who came across as a bitch nigga with all his primadonna bullshit.
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>>9315927
Your mistake was reading the Fagles translation, he's completely unremarkable. Try Lattimore (for a translation that stays true to syntactic structure), Fitzgerald (for a beautiful but fairly reliable translation), or Pope (for a sublime, albeit unfaithful translation). Same with the Odyssey.
The Iliad is beautiful because it's an introspection. Don't focus merely on the battlefield, but what the war means when juxtaposed with domestic life, kλέος, and τιμή.
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>>9317434
Everyone told me Fagles was the best translation.
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>>9317152
Achilleus is fucking great and Hektor is GOAT what's wrong with you.
But yeah Odysseus is better.
>>9317484
Yeah I dunno why. There was a phase when /lit/ was full of Faglesfags, now it's (quite rightly) Lattimautists who dominate.
Don't bother with Fitzgerald; he's not a good enough poet to justify his worse translation. Don't read Pope, because his translation is really its own work. Fagles is good, but Lattimore is better.
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Parallel Lives by Plutarch.
Interesting anecdotes and biographies of famous greek people, gives insight in the culture while being pretty amusing.
An example is the story about the Spartan boy who hides a fox under his shirt until it gnaws him to death, amusing stories like that.
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