Strategies for reading the classics?

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by khalleron

'None of them' is not a helpful opinion.

An opinion on a book you've never read is completely worthless.

I can understand not wanting to get out of your comfort zone, but not wanting anyone else to get out of your comfort zone is just strange.

khalleron, no offense, but I feel like the "none of them" posts are perfectly valid because the OP already raised the issue of how worthwhile this whole exercise is with his points about women and minorities being excluded from the traditional classics cannon.

I feel like we're spiraling into a similar black hole as the Extended Warranties discussion and that anything further will be just an endless repetition of yes it is no it isn't back and forth. My request would be to put the people whose opinions you don't feel are valid in this thread on mental killfire instead of continuing to argue about how you don't think they should be posting in this thread.

---

Back on topic,

DMB, I disagree with your assertion that you learn a lot about women and slaves through the eyes of the Greek classics. There are glimpses in some places, but for the most part I do not think the view of the disenfranchised is well-represented.

I would very much like to read (or write) a version of the Clytemnestra story where her murder of Agamemnon is presented more sympathetically than it is in The Odyssey. I mean, the man murders her daughter, goes off to war for years leaving her to fend for herself, and brings home a concubine when he finally decides to show back up.

Not a jury in the world would convict that poor woman, but when Agamemnon's ghost relates all this to Odysseus, her POV is so completely obscured that the only way we can get to it at all is basically through fan fiction rewrites. Sure, you can call that "modern analysis" or whatever, but it's still basically up to the reader to find something of value in that, which is fine if that's what you're going for, but my recommendation to the OP is to actually read something that portrays the plight of the disenfranchised more overtly than that --

Hence my suggestion of American short story classics. We've got lots of really good ones written by women and African Americans that can really hit home and which I consider to be more stirring and emotionally touching than the average classic. Since we're offering our subjective opinions and all.

[ardeegee]

Originally Posted by Rizla

I don't know why some Shakespeare is hard and some is easy.

Maybe because (and this will probably open another can of worms) Shakespeare was never meant to be read-- it was meant to be seen.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Maybe because (and this will probably open another can of worms) Shakespeare was never meant to be read-- it was meant to be seen.

THIS. THANK YOU.

I can't stand how Shakespeare is taught in schools these days. I hate reading Shakespeare (unless I'm "following along" with a production). The plays -- well, most of them -- are sublime when acted, but truly terrible when read. Well, that's my opinion.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by khalleron

No, I did not mean you. I meant ardeegee and astra.

I was sure you meant the Twain quote to be humorous. Some people seemed to be taking it seriously, however.

If someone asked what Horror books to recommend, I'd have to say 'I don't read Horror' and step aside. I wouldn't go on a thread and say, 'Don't read it!' I fully realize that other people have an appreciation and knowledge of things I do not. I don't understand people who insist that everyone MUST enjoy the same things they do and MUST avoid the same things they dislike.

Good point. Everyone's likes and dislikes are unique. It would be a very dull world if everyone did like exactly the same thing I think. Not to mention there would be little progress since if everyone was content with how things were no one would think to invent a better way to do x.

[crich70]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Maybe because (and this will probably open another can of worms) Shakespeare was never meant to be read-- it was meant to be seen.

My mom would agree with you. She had to read Julius Caesar when in high school and found it boring, but then years later she saw a movie adaptation of the play and it made a lot better impression on her.

[khalleron]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Maybe because (and this will probably open another can of worms) Shakespeare was never meant to be read-- it was meant to be seen.

Now that I agree with.

[GoSharks]

Originally Posted by ardeegee

Maybe because (and this will probably open another can of worms) Shakespeare was never meant to be read-- it was meant to be seen.

As his works were written primarily for the stage, this goes without saying....however, I think one can take it a step further. Not everything written by classical authors was meant to be enduring. Some were meant to be inspirational, some educational, some recreational, and some just to put food on the table. His body of work certainly encompassed all of these purposes, the trick is to decide what your in the mood for....
I'm not sure what the purpose of Jane Austen's works was, other than to annoy Twain! (ducking and covering now....)

[crich70]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

As his works were written primarily for the stage, this goes without saying....however, I think one can take it a step further. Not everything written by classical authors was meant to be enduring. Some were meant to be inspirational, some educational, some recreational, and some just to put food on the table. His body of work certainly encompassed all of these purposes, the trick is to decide what your in the mood for....
I'm not sure what the purpose of Jane Austen's works was, other than to annoy Twain! (ducking and covering now....)

True and in the case of Shakespere we owe the preservation of his body of works not to the man himself but to friends of his who began compiling what became known as the first folio shortly after his death. I'm sure there were many men writing plays back then but most of them are long forgotten. For example the Coventry Carol is all that's left of a play based on the events of the 1st Christmas when Herod sent his soldiers out to kill the babes hoping to dispose of the Messiah by so doing. The carol was sung by the 'mothers' who were hoping to keep their children quiet so they wouldn't be murdered in their cribs. It was performed in Coventry England which is why the Carol is called the "Coventry Carol" to this day. Anyway there were probably a good many plays written based on the scriptures back then and in fact Shakespeare also based at least some of his plays on earlier works giving them a tweak here and there to make them different. In many cases those earlier plays are likely forgotten. He wrote for the people of his time. The common man who had few other amusements. I imagine if he could come back today and find his plays still being performed he'd be astonished.

[DMB]

Shakespeare certainly thought his sonnets would last:

Not marble, nor the gilded monuments
Of princes shall outlive this powerful rhyme,
But you shall shine more bright in these contents
Than unswept stone besmeared with sluttish time.
When wasteful war shall statues overturn,
And broils root out the work of masonry,
Nor Mars his sword, nor war's quick fire shall burn
The living record of your memory.
'Gainst death and all-oblivious enmity
Shall you pace forth; your praise shall still find room
Even in the eyes of all posterity
That wear this world out to the ending doom.
So, till the judgment that yourself arise,
You live in this, and dwell in lovers' eyes.

A bit like Ozmandias, really:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

I have to say that if I had to pick one poem in the English language to last me for the rest of my life, it would be Ozmandias

[DMB]

Anamardoll, I think you misunderstood what I meant about the Greeks. There's was a very different culture from ours; one might call it alien. But we live in a multicultural world and I think it's a good thing to be able to take in the cultural details and differences while also seeing the common humanity. If our world is to pull though its many problems, we need to find that common humanity.

Reading the classics introduces us to different ways of looking at the world and dealing with life's problems. I don't think we should be so confident about our own culture as to suppose that if humans are still around in a couple of thousand years' time they won't look back on us with some misgivings and even contempt.

Of course I agree about Clytemnestra. Our 21st-century take on her story can provide an interesting basis for a modern novel. Have you come across the Canongate Myth Series? I really enjoyed Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad, which was part of the series.

Our take on that story is one of the many reasons for reading the stories. Reading this sort of thing isn't like reading a piece of modern genre fiction; it's a bit more gritty than that. It surprises, horrifies and challenges us. The Iliad, in particular, is definitely strange. By the time we come to read it, we may have a sketchy idea of the myth and would expect it to start with Paris, the three goddesses and Helen. Instead, it plunges into the middle of the Trojan War and is about Achilles' monstrous sulk. I think it's an interesting question to consider whether an ancient Greek audience would have sympathised with Achilles, the greatest Greek hero, or thought he was behaving badly. That raises the whole question of men's "honour" and what it means. This is still a live question today, with so many so-called "honour killings".

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by DMB

Anamardoll, I think you misunderstood what I meant about the Greeks. There's was a very different culture from ours; one might call it alien. But we live in a multicultural world and I think it's a good thing to be able to take in the cultural details and differences while also seeing the common humanity. If our world is to pull though its many problems, we need to find that common humanity.

Well, that I definitely agree on.

I think I only harped on the Greeks because someone suggested tongue-in-cheek that the Greeks represented a fairly full sum of the human experience. (I'm too lazy to check back in the thread to see what was actually said.)

So, yes, if the recommendation is to toss some Greek literature onto the pile along with some more modern stuff that clearly accentuates the pov of the more disenfranchised, then I heartily endorse this plan.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by GoSharks

As his works were written primarily for the stage, this goes without saying....however, I think one can take it a step further. Not everything written by classical authors was meant to be enduring. Some were meant to be inspirational, some educational, some recreational, and some just to put food on the table. His body of work certainly encompassed all of these purposes, the trick is to decide what your in the mood for....
I'm not sure what the purpose of Jane Austen's works was, other than to annoy Twain! (ducking and covering now....)

Which is particularly funny when the author didn't even like their most cherished work in the first place. I rather recall that Louisa May Alcott didn't like Little Women at all and was annoyed by how much attention and fame her "for the money" book brought in.

Spoiler:

And I've also read that she married Laurie to Amy largely to irritate Laurie-Jo shippers.

[DMB]

And, of course, Conan Doyle famously got fed up with Holmes and killed him. only to have to resuscitate him by popular demand.

[anamardoll]

Originally Posted by DMB

And, of course, Conan Doyle famously got fed up with Holmes and killed him. only to have to resuscitate him by popular demand.

Haha, we could start a whole thread just about authors killing off their main characters out of spite.

[DMB]

Reverting to (fairly) modern takes on the Greeks, has anyone read Mary Renault's two Theseus books: The King must die and The Bull from the Sea? Unfortunately, I can't find them as ebooks.