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1. The Iliad.
For a young man all is decorous
when he is cut down in battle and torn with the sharp bronze, and lies there
dead, and though dead still all that shows about him is beautiful;
but when an old man is dead and down, and the dogs mutilate
the grey head and the grey beard and the parts that are secret,
this, for all sad mortality, is the sight most pitiful.
Suzanne and Chris begin their conversations about great books with a very big and very old one: Homer’s Iliad. This Ancient Greek poem about the Trojan War is, of course, widely known, but if you haven’t
read it (or if you haven’t read it in a while), you might not remember how
complex (and downright strange) it gets with its reflections on war and the fallout
of war. They also talk about the joys of dipping in and out of books, rather than
reading them from cover to cover.
Show Notes.
The Iliad by Homer, in the Richmond Lattimore
translation. [Bookshop.]
A review
of English translations of the Iliad.
Another
review of English translations.
A
quick taste of what Ancient Greek might have sounded like.
“‘Homer
can help you’: War veterans use ancient epics to cope.”
“‘The
Iliad’ as illustration of epic struggle with post-Vietnam stress.”
“Here,
Bullet”
by Iraq war veteran Brian Turner, along with a short bio
and two
podcasts on war
poetry.
Teaching classics to convicts.
A lecture on “The Disordered Soul: Thémis and PTSD”.
Writers & Company interviews Pat Barker,
author of a recent novel that retells the Iliad from Briseis’s perspective.
Christopher Logue’s War Music is a classic recent radical translation/retelling of the Iliad.
Next episode: The Symposium by Plato.
View all episodes
By Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Chris Piuma
4.8
3030 ratings
For a young man all is decorous
when he is cut down in battle and torn with the sharp bronze, and lies there
dead, and though dead still all that shows about him is beautiful;
but when an old man is dead and down, and the dogs mutilate
the grey head and the grey beard and the parts that are secret,
this, for all sad mortality, is the sight most pitiful.
Suzanne and Chris begin their conversations about great books with a very big and very old one: Homer’s Iliad. This Ancient Greek poem about the Trojan War is, of course, widely known, but if you haven’t
read it (or if you haven’t read it in a while), you might not remember how
complex (and downright strange) it gets with its reflections on war and the fallout
of war. They also talk about the joys of dipping in and out of books, rather than
reading them from cover to cover.
Show Notes.
The Iliad by Homer, in the Richmond Lattimore
translation. [Bookshop.]
A review
of English translations of the Iliad.
Another
review of English translations.
A
quick taste of what Ancient Greek might have sounded like.
“‘Homer
can help you’: War veterans use ancient epics to cope.”
“‘The
Iliad’ as illustration of epic struggle with post-Vietnam stress.”
“Here,
Bullet”
by Iraq war veteran Brian Turner, along with a short bio
and two
podcasts on war
poetry.
Teaching classics to convicts.
A lecture on “The Disordered Soul: Thémis and PTSD”.
Writers & Company interviews Pat Barker,
author of a recent novel that retells the Iliad from Briseis’s perspective.
Christopher Logue’s War Music is a classic recent radical translation/retelling of the Iliad.
Next episode: The Symposium by Plato.
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