5 ms·

The Iliad is the first book I read cover to cover. At 15. I hated reading fictions growing up and just got away reading cliff notes during middle school. The bo

by lvl102 3y ago

The Iliad is the first book I read cover to cover. At 15. I hated reading fictions growing up and just got away reading cliff notes during middle school. The book changed my life not because I learned anything from the texts but I learned the merits of reading something cover to cover without taking shortcuts. I also learned that some people can recite the entire book from memory which was my first realization of “100x” myth.

jeroenhd 3y ago
> I also learned that some people can recite the entire book from memory which was my first realization of “100x” myth. I don't know about memorising translations, but the Iliad was composed specifically so it could be memorised, and it was long repeated (even in competition form!) before it was ever written down. The Greek original follows a strict dactylic hexameter with rhymes and other tricks to make it easier to memorize. It's crazy to think in a world of writing that back then people memorised entire books/songs/poems like the Iliad instead of simply reading a copy. It makes sense, in a way; copying such a long text would take ages, especially with writing implements at the time, but I'm still amazed by the dedication these ancient people had.
- bitwize 3y ago
  I've always found it fascinating how the Polynesians kept records of their families' history. Each family has a song, taught from one generation to the next. Each generation gets to add their exploits as a verse to the song, which can grow very long yet must still be memorized, recited, and taught to one's children.
- int_19h 3y ago
  And you have to have writing to begin with... Consider also the degree of investment this requires from society as a whole. To learn to recite large works from memory like that pretty much requires a person who dedicates their life entirely to the craft (excluding other productive work), not just learning the techniques and the stories themselves, but also eventually teaching others to carry on. These are all extra mouths to feed by the rest, and yet some form of it was historically extremely widespread in pre-literate societies. It just goes to show how important stories and generational memory are to us as species.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - dan-robertson 3y ago
    Is it actually true that it requires so much time? Eg do you see it today with Bedouin tribesmen memorising their many epic poems? I would have assumed the transfer would happen, for example, when the ‘productive work’ to be done is ‘sitting around watching over the animals in the evening’. Certainly it is true that the ancient Greeks had professional performers, but I’m not sure that’s necessary.
    - int_19h 3y ago
      It depends. If you want to just retell stories broadly, only preserving the overall narrative, then no, it's not necessary. But if you want to recite them word for word consistently - which many cultures did and do value - then yes, it requires a lot of rote learning, and learning of various associated memorization techniques. Thus not all cultures evolved such a distinct profession, but many did. Some particularly impressive examples include the Mongolian Epic of Gesar and the Kyrgyz Epic of Manas. The latter is notable for having over 500,000 lines of verse, and there are living performers capable of reciting the whole thing end to end (which takes several days).
      - hnbad 3y ago
        > which many cultures did and do value Eh. That comes with a lot of caveats. There's an entire branch to library science (yes, that's a thing) dedicated to storing and analysing different "editions" of the same text because it helps trace how stories spread over time. Usually large parts of the text will be the same but there will be minor changes, often inconsequential, in one edition versus another. > it requires a lot of rote learning, and learning of various associated memorization techniques Sure, if you today want to memorize an entire work like that, you will need to do that. But this ignores the historical context. Nowadays you may hear dozens of sophisticated tales every day. You can't even watch the news without hearing narratives, often deliberately constructed to have heroes and villains and story arcs to make boring events sound interesting. Back then, especially in remote villages, your material was much more limited and there was much more work that allowed for telling or listening to stories and songs. This also ignores the survivorship bias: the people who ended up reciting these stories were likely already interested in memorizing them and found it easier to do so. For example, certain forms of autism literally would have predisposed people to being able to commit such stories to memory and recite them word-for-word, given enough time and opportunities to do so. Telling them in an interesting way then would just have been a craft you'd hone through repetition. It's also fallacious to think of this as a distinct profession inherently. Without the separation of labor the concept of a "profession" makes little sense even if different people might prefer doing different kinds of work and thus naturally divide some parts of labor without a formal distinction (e.g. in a gift economy it's perfectly plausible for the guy who is really good at making tools to spend more of his time on tools for others who'd in turn take over some of his other work to allow him to focus on that). Yes, at some point memorizing and reciting stories becomes so much work you don't have time for anything else and a culture might recognize that as a distinct profession the same way it might have shamans or holy people, but I'd argue that often oral cultures would strive perfectly fine, even when it comes to longer works. Now, being able to create such an extensive work and spread it to other groups/tribes/towns is another matter and would indeed be more likely to happen in the presence of a distinct profession. But of course it's no accident that there are so many parallels between historical epics.
- hopw_roewur_ne 3y ago
  There are some tricks like stock phrases that often take up half a line, but rhyme is not among them. Epic poetry wasn't written to rhyme.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    Perhaps "rhyme" isn't the right word. There's a certain flow to the way some of the words are laid out. Part of that is the metre shaping the words possible but part of it also seems very deliberate. It certainly doesn't have much of the last syllable rhyme you would expect today.
  - tremon 3y ago
    Alliteration and consonance are forms of (the broader definition of) rhyme.
    - lupire 3y ago
      It's interesting that rhyme detived from the word rhythm, but rhyme is the complement of rhythm.
- lnauta 3y ago
  Last summer I read a translation that tries to keep the rhyme and rythm. For parts I just got enchanted and kept reading and reading way longer than normal for me. How great it would be to hear this from someone who memorised it.
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    There are still people who try. There are videos online of people who have memorised the ancient Greek (with modern accents, of course), like https://youtu.be/Zzal-36eIoY https://youtu.be/Zzal-36eIoY. I think at some point Boris Johnson of all people started reciting a bit of the Iliad during an interview at some point. Don't expect the full version on Youtube, though; the 24 books seem to all take an hour of each, and I don't think anyone has cared to spend a full day reading ancient Greek into a microphone yet, let alone recite it for an audience. Unfortunately, I can't really find an audiobook version of the English translation of the Iliad. Perhaps AI can be used for chores like this, as human speakers would probably lose the rhythm often, which I imagine must make accurate audiobook recordings in this style quite difficult.
    - kibwen 3y ago
      I would love to hear an attempt at writing brand-new modern literature that was written in the style of oral tradition, with strict meter and rhyme to aid in memorization. Imagine sci-fi in the style of Homer!
      - lupire 3y ago
        This is a triumph. I'm making a note here: huge success.
    - petesergeant 3y ago
      > Boris Johnson of all people Wasn’t he a Classics scholar at arguably the best university in the world? That’s exactly who’d I expect to be able to recite it! Edit: “Johnson won a scholarship to study Literae Humaniores at Balliol College, Oxford, a four-year course in Classics, ancient languages, literature, history, and philosophy” … also won an academic prize for Classics at Eton, which is notably academically rigorous
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  The other factor is that I suspect the amount of stories was less back then; nowadays, every week there's hundreds of books, thousands of webpages, movies, etc being released. But 500 years ago most people couldn't even read.

by lvl102 3y ago

jeroenhd 3y ago

> I also learned that some people can recite the entire book from memory which was my first realization of “100x” myth. I don't know about memorising translations, but the Iliad was composed specifically so it could be memorised, and it was long repeated (even in competition form!) before it was ever written down. The Greek original follows a strict dactylic hexameter with rhymes and other tricks to make it easier to memorize. It's crazy to think in a world of writing that back then people memorised entire books/songs/poems like the Iliad instead of simply reading a copy. It makes sense, in a way; copying such a long text would take ages, especially with writing implements at the time, but I'm still amazed by the dedication these ancient people had.

bitwize 3y ago
I've always found it fascinating how the Polynesians kept records of their families' history. Each family has a song, taught from one generation to the next. Each generation gets to add their exploits as a verse to the song, which can grow very long yet must still be memorized, recited, and taught to one's children.
int_19h 3y ago
And you have to have writing to begin with... Consider also the degree of investment this requires from society as a whole. To learn to recite large works from memory like that pretty much requires a person who dedicates their life entirely to the craft (excluding other productive work), not just learning the techniques and the stories themselves, but also eventually teaching others to carry on. These are all extra mouths to feed by the rest, and yet some form of it was historically extremely widespread in pre-literate societies. It just goes to show how important stories and generational memory are to us as species.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dan-robertson 3y ago
  Is it actually true that it requires so much time? Eg do you see it today with Bedouin tribesmen memorising their many epic poems? I would have assumed the transfer would happen, for example, when the ‘productive work’ to be done is ‘sitting around watching over the animals in the evening’. Certainly it is true that the ancient Greeks had professional performers, but I’m not sure that’s necessary.
  - int_19h 3y ago
    It depends. If you want to just retell stories broadly, only preserving the overall narrative, then no, it's not necessary. But if you want to recite them word for word consistently - which many cultures did and do value - then yes, it requires a lot of rote learning, and learning of various associated memorization techniques. Thus not all cultures evolved such a distinct profession, but many did. Some particularly impressive examples include the Mongolian Epic of Gesar and the Kyrgyz Epic of Manas. The latter is notable for having over 500,000 lines of verse, and there are living performers capable of reciting the whole thing end to end (which takes several days).
    - hnbad 3y ago
      > which many cultures did and do value Eh. That comes with a lot of caveats. There's an entire branch to library science (yes, that's a thing) dedicated to storing and analysing different "editions" of the same text because it helps trace how stories spread over time. Usually large parts of the text will be the same but there will be minor changes, often inconsequential, in one edition versus another. > it requires a lot of rote learning, and learning of various associated memorization techniques Sure, if you today want to memorize an entire work like that, you will need to do that. But this ignores the historical context. Nowadays you may hear dozens of sophisticated tales every day. You can't even watch the news without hearing narratives, often deliberately constructed to have heroes and villains and story arcs to make boring events sound interesting. Back then, especially in remote villages, your material was much more limited and there was much more work that allowed for telling or listening to stories and songs. This also ignores the survivorship bias: the people who ended up reciting these stories were likely already interested in memorizing them and found it easier to do so. For example, certain forms of autism literally would have predisposed people to being able to commit such stories to memory and recite them word-for-word, given enough time and opportunities to do so. Telling them in an interesting way then would just have been a craft you'd hone through repetition. It's also fallacious to think of this as a distinct profession inherently. Without the separation of labor the concept of a "profession" makes little sense even if different people might prefer doing different kinds of work and thus naturally divide some parts of labor without a formal distinction (e.g. in a gift economy it's perfectly plausible for the guy who is really good at making tools to spend more of his time on tools for others who'd in turn take over some of his other work to allow him to focus on that). Yes, at some point memorizing and reciting stories becomes so much work you don't have time for anything else and a culture might recognize that as a distinct profession the same way it might have shamans or holy people, but I'd argue that often oral cultures would strive perfectly fine, even when it comes to longer works. Now, being able to create such an extensive work and spread it to other groups/tribes/towns is another matter and would indeed be more likely to happen in the presence of a distinct profession. But of course it's no accident that there are so many parallels between historical epics.
hopw_roewur_ne 3y ago
There are some tricks like stock phrases that often take up half a line, but rhyme is not among them. Epic poetry wasn't written to rhyme.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  Perhaps "rhyme" isn't the right word. There's a certain flow to the way some of the words are laid out. Part of that is the metre shaping the words possible but part of it also seems very deliberate. It certainly doesn't have much of the last syllable rhyme you would expect today.
- tremon 3y ago
  Alliteration and consonance are forms of (the broader definition of) rhyme.
  - lupire 3y ago
    It's interesting that rhyme detived from the word rhythm, but rhyme is the complement of rhythm.
lnauta 3y ago
Last summer I read a translation that tries to keep the rhyme and rythm. For parts I just got enchanted and kept reading and reading way longer than normal for me. How great it would be to hear this from someone who memorised it.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  There are still people who try. There are videos online of people who have memorised the ancient Greek (with modern accents, of course), like https://youtu.be/Zzal-36eIoY https://youtu.be/Zzal-36eIoY. I think at some point Boris Johnson of all people started reciting a bit of the Iliad during an interview at some point. Don't expect the full version on Youtube, though; the 24 books seem to all take an hour of each, and I don't think anyone has cared to spend a full day reading ancient Greek into a microphone yet, let alone recite it for an audience. Unfortunately, I can't really find an audiobook version of the English translation of the Iliad. Perhaps AI can be used for chores like this, as human speakers would probably lose the rhythm often, which I imagine must make accurate audiobook recordings in this style quite difficult.
  - kibwen 3y ago
    I would love to hear an attempt at writing brand-new modern literature that was written in the style of oral tradition, with strict meter and rhyme to aid in memorization. Imagine sci-fi in the style of Homer!
    - lupire 3y ago
      This is a triumph. I'm making a note here: huge success.
  - petesergeant 3y ago
    > Boris Johnson of all people Wasn’t he a Classics scholar at arguably the best university in the world? That’s exactly who’d I expect to be able to recite it! Edit: “Johnson won a scholarship to study Literae Humaniores at Balliol College, Oxford, a four-year course in Classics, ancient languages, literature, history, and philosophy” … also won an academic prize for Classics at Eton, which is notably academically rigorous
Cthulhu_ 3y ago
The other factor is that I suspect the amount of stories was less back then; nowadays, every week there's hundreds of books, thousands of webpages, movies, etc being released. But 500 years ago most people couldn't even read.