3 ms·

That's a shame, since one's understanding of so much of Western art of all sorts is greatly improved by familiarity with: 1) the Bible, and 2) a dozen or so Gre

by ashark 9y ago

That's a shame, since one's understanding of so much of Western art of all sorts is greatly improved by familiarity with: 1) the Bible, and 2) a dozen or so Greek and Roman authors, including and especially Homer. By losing that foundation one engages with pretty much the entire body of Western art at a huge disadvantage. It's a kind of common language of symbols, tropes, and allusions that bind the whole thing together, without which much is lost.

lvoudour 9y ago
The modern shift away from the classics as standard part of western education is sad, but understandable to me. I believe it started as a reaction to the teaching rigidness and the over-reverence of classic texts by previous generations, people just got fed up. But more importantly there's now a variety of texts that explain, enhance or abridge the classics in a more approachable manner and an overabundance of new knowledge and art to explore. However, there's still lot to earn by reading the original texts. I reread the Iliad and the Odyssey in my late twenties and I felt this fuzzy feeling of familiarity, that human nature hasn't changed that much (if at all) through the ages. Wrath, love, courage, friendship, betrayal, revenge, vanity, wisdom, ingenuity, stupidity - way too familiar. One of my favorite parts of the Odyssey is when Odysseus' dog recognizes him. In a few words Homer describes the special bond between dogs and humans, a relationship that spans millennia and keeps strong even (more so) to this day.
gglitch 9y ago
We live in an age of cultural abundance. There are many paths and you can't walk them all.
- ashark 9y ago
  Well, yeah, but a great deal of said cultural abundance assumes you've got a pretty strong familiarity with the Bible and a few classical authors. You're gonna be losing a lot from a pretty big chunk of Western art up the Moderns or so, and still quite a bit after, without that foundation, so by skipping out on that not even that large set of works you're giving up on serious engagement with most of Western art. It'll be a minefield of confusion and things you miss without even knowing they're there. Summaries and retellings won't cut it, since good references to those works will lean on nuance that's not usually present in "bare bones" or cultural-osmosis versions of the tales (the linked article covers some of this, in fact), to the point that making such references that assume only a kind of pop-culture understanding of these things tends to be a mark of poor, pseudo-intellectual, trying-too-hard art. As far as things to skip due to an abundance of choices go, those are perhaps unwise ones to avoid, if some part of the other "paths" you'll walk include pretty much any other areas of Western art. Maybe you decide your "path" is 19th century French literature. Guess which two bodies of work are foundational to that? OK, so you just like sci-fi. Well, there are the Bible and the Classical writers again, at least in the better stuff. Medieval studies? Yeah, obviously. Film—like, pretty much any of it that comes from the West and has artistic value? Oh god, yes. Well screw all this, I'm gonna focus on Arabic or Persian works. Oh. They have significant cultural ties to the Greeks too, thanks to Alexander, so I'm back to that again. Fine art. There aren't even words so I'm safe there. Oh, wait, no I'm not. Damn. Music? Ugh, there's Achilles and Abraham and Aeneas and all the rest. Philosophy? Nope, too much of that assumes the same common, smallish set of common experience as everything else. OK, fine, I'm so over this, I'm just gonna play video games. This Deux Ex thing is supposed to be good for some reason, let's start there. Oh... oh no... not again!
  - gglitch 9y ago
    I feel you. You're preaching to the choir here - I narrowly dodged majoring in classics myself, and my particular brand of virtue signaling is to rave about how much better the Lattimore is than the Fagles. But many of the leaves are now quite far from the root, and many of them are on other trees altogether. Studying foundational anthropological art and literature would no doubt accrue immense sociocultural benefits to, yeah, anyone, and to be sure, I can't wait to do Homer with my kid. But if other interests crowd out the roots, I'm sure he'll be fine, and so will the tree.

by ashark 9y ago

lvoudour 9y ago

The modern shift away from the classics as standard part of western education is sad, but understandable to me. I believe it started as a reaction to the teaching rigidness and the over-reverence of classic texts by previous generations, people just got fed up. But more importantly there's now a variety of texts that explain, enhance or abridge the classics in a more approachable manner and an overabundance of new knowledge and art to explore. However, there's still lot to earn by reading the original texts. I reread the Iliad and the Odyssey in my late twenties and I felt this fuzzy feeling of familiarity, that human nature hasn't changed that much (if at all) through the ages. Wrath, love, courage, friendship, betrayal, revenge, vanity, wisdom, ingenuity, stupidity - way too familiar. One of my favorite parts of the Odyssey is when Odysseus' dog recognizes him. In a few words Homer describes the special bond between dogs and humans, a relationship that spans millennia and keeps strong even (more so) to this day.

gglitch 9y ago

We live in an age of cultural abundance. There are many paths and you can't walk them all.

ashark 9y ago
Well, yeah, but a great deal of said cultural abundance assumes you've got a pretty strong familiarity with the Bible and a few classical authors. You're gonna be losing a lot from a pretty big chunk of Western art up the Moderns or so, and still quite a bit after, without that foundation, so by skipping out on that not even that large set of works you're giving up on serious engagement with most of Western art. It'll be a minefield of confusion and things you miss without even knowing they're there. Summaries and retellings won't cut it, since good references to those works will lean on nuance that's not usually present in "bare bones" or cultural-osmosis versions of the tales (the linked article covers some of this, in fact), to the point that making such references that assume only a kind of pop-culture understanding of these things tends to be a mark of poor, pseudo-intellectual, trying-too-hard art. As far as things to skip due to an abundance of choices go, those are perhaps unwise ones to avoid, if some part of the other "paths" you'll walk include pretty much any other areas of Western art. Maybe you decide your "path" is 19th century French literature. Guess which two bodies of work are foundational to that? OK, so you just like sci-fi. Well, there are the Bible and the Classical writers again, at least in the better stuff. Medieval studies? Yeah, obviously. Film—like, pretty much any of it that comes from the West and has artistic value? Oh god, yes. Well screw all this, I'm gonna focus on Arabic or Persian works. Oh. They have significant cultural ties to the Greeks too, thanks to Alexander, so I'm back to that again. Fine art. There aren't even words so I'm safe there. Oh, wait, no I'm not. Damn. Music? Ugh, there's Achilles and Abraham and Aeneas and all the rest. Philosophy? Nope, too much of that assumes the same common, smallish set of common experience as everything else. OK, fine, I'm so over this, I'm just gonna play video games. This Deux Ex thing is supposed to be good for some reason, let's start there. Oh... oh no... not again!
- gglitch 9y ago
  I feel you. You're preaching to the choir here - I narrowly dodged majoring in classics myself, and my particular brand of virtue signaling is to rave about how much better the Lattimore is than the Fagles. But many of the leaves are now quite far from the root, and many of them are on other trees altogether. Studying foundational anthropological art and literature would no doubt accrue immense sociocultural benefits to, yeah, anyone, and to be sure, I can't wait to do Homer with my kid. But if other interests crowd out the roots, I'm sure he'll be fine, and so will the tree.