Is it worth it to learn Latin to access the epic poets?

>>9597578
no

>>9597578
I started learning Latin recently because I wanted some grounding in the classical tradition. Since I just started learning, I don't know much but I'm already starting to have second thoughts about it. I haven't read any Latin literature, but it seems to me that Latin is more of a political language than an artistic one, which is why Latin literature doesn't seem to be very highly acclaimed, at least not compared to Greek literature. You may end up spending years just to learn a language that no one other than a few geeks speaks anymore, and whose literature isn't particularly famous.

>>9597608
Virgil, Horace, Ovid, and Catullus are considered some of the best poets in the canon. Start with Horace's Odes. You'll see their influence in everything: Milton, Dryden, Johnson, Marvell, Tennyson, Keats, Pound, Housman, Auden, and Frost.

>>9597652

I've also heard that the Latin in the Aeneid is much more complex than the Greek in The Iliad or The Odyssey despite Homer being the better storyteller and the fact that Virgil pulls a lot of content from Homer.

>is it worth it to spend months learning a dead language so i can read some poems nobody outside an extreme minority circlejerk gives a fuck about?

ya probably

>>9597829
Anon, it's always been like this. For thousands of years most of humanity was illiterate. Now we've gone to the other side of the spectrum with aliteracy.

Based on your logic, the monks should've stopped learning Latin in the Middle Ages because no one was reading it.

>>9597608
>Latin literature doesn't seem to be very highly acclaimed, at least not compared to Greek literature
What fucking world are you living in? Homer is important and read all over the western world just because he's been the FIRST poet. Apart from him, very few Greeks achieved the greatness of Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Lucretius. Not to mention Cicero is the greatest orator ever existed, Petronius' Satyricon has no equivalent in the all time literature, Apuleius' Metamorphoses is the first novel we know of, Seneca is one of the most praised philosophers ever... and I could go on.

>>9598270

First WESTERN poet, maybe. First Western poet that survives, more likely. Why does everyone forget about the Vedics and the Bablyonians...

>>9598274
>Why does everyone forget about the Vedics and the Bablyonians
I don't forget about them, it's just that we don't read them because either we don't have much survived from them and Homer is ten times better than them.

OF COURSE, holy shit, OF COURSE there were other authors before Homer, but he remains the founding father of western tradition, that's it.

If you care about intellectual virtue signalling or have a serious hardon for Latin writers, yes.

If you care about spending your time productively learning about things that are actually relevant to broader society, no. Learning dead languages is never worth it from a pragmatic standpoint.

>>9597578
Honestly, no. Times have simply changed and acquiring a classical education does not convey the same benefit it once did. If you have an actual interest in Latin literature, then go ahead. But don't pursue it in some attempt to become "educated." Spend some time reading Latin authors in translation first and see how much interest you actually have in the material.

no, there's just not enough written in latin to make it worth it. 'worth' is subjective ofc..

learn french, a true patrish, alive, language with plenty of shit to read.