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Back stories help, and so with the Odyssey it really helps to have read the Oresteia (yes, Aeschylus is writing later) before the Odyssey, in my opinion, this h
by CalChris 6y ago
Back stories help, and so with the Odyssey it really helps to have read the Oresteia (yes, Aeschylus is writing later) before the Odyssey, in my opinion, this helps more than having read the Iliad. It helps because the Telemachy (the first four books with Telemachus) compares Telemachus (he's such an entitled twerp) to Orestes and then in the 11th book Odysseus descends into the underworld and questions Agamemnon. So it helps to know what they're talking about.
With the Iliad, it helps to know about the Judgment of Paris but I think my prof at Berkeley simply recited it. I don't know what the 'classic' telling would be.
Of course it helps to have read the Iliad and the Odyssey before the Aeneid. The first half, the Odyssean half, is just a lot more fun because of Dido. She's like Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. But when Dido does what Dido did then in the Iliadic second half you're stuck with stoic Aeneas (and Turnus) and Aeneas is just not that interesting.
I would say:
1. Judgment of Paris (somehow, somewhere, Robert Graves?)
2. Iliad (I'm a huge fan of Lattimore)
3. Oresteia (at least Agamemnon)
4. Odyssey
5. Aeneid
I could never get into Joyce but I may give him another try.
- leephillips 6y agoJoyce’s great novel has nothing except the most tenuous and inessential connection with the Odyssey, despite the title. Joyce removed the chapter titles that had referred to the Odyssey after the first edition, and said that he regretted ever having put them in there, because they had misled readers and critics into imagining parallels to the Greek story that did not exist. The main character does wander around, though.
- CalChris 6y agoThanks. That's probably why I struggled with it. I guess I was looking for Aeneid like parallels which weren't there.
- Mediterraneo10 6y ago> Joyce’s great novel has nothing except the most tenuous and inessential connection with the Odyssey Joyce’s own chart of the construction of the book[0] features the Odyssey chapter titles as prominently as any of the other issues. Certainly there is an "essential" connection to the Odyssey, though it is just one rich ingredient for this masterpiece among others. Joyce’s later regret can be chalked down to people imagining parallels that he didn’t intend, but I don’t think there’s a scholar around who doesn’t believe that Joyce wrote the barmaids as a parallel to the sirens, or the Citizen to the Cyclops. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_schema_for_Ulysses https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilbert_schema_for_Ulysses
- leephillips 6y agoSure, but those are the kinds of things that I was calling a tenuous connection. All I meant was that a scholarly familiarity with Homer is not necessary to appreciate Joyce’s book.