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The criteria of "usefulness" is a slippery slope. Books like The Iliad are completely devoid of any practical usefulness, they would have been discarded centuri
by chalimacos 10y ago
The criteria of "usefulness" is a slippery slope. Books like The Iliad are completely devoid of any practical usefulness, they would have been discarded centuries ago by the librarians at Alexandria. I've seen libraries in Spain throw away good novels, even excellent novels, to make room for the latest potboiler.
- abecedarius 10y agoThe library at Alexandria was where the early scholarship on Homer was done. > The Alexandrine grammarians undertook the critical revision of the works of classical Greek literature,[3] particularly those of Homer, and their studies were profoundly influential,[4] marking the beginning of the Western grammatical tradition.[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandrine_grammarians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandrine_grammarians (Not arguing with your point about usefulness in general; just twitching when it came to the Iliad.)