Classics Salon!
Dec. 3rd, 2025 09:29 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cahnSo yeah, anyone who has been around this DW for more than a very little while has known that we had a salon in which we discussed Frederick the Great in particular and 18th-century Enlightenment figures in general.
But nooooow we are going to have a Classics salon!
My Classics background is, er, well, I guess my Classics history is pretty much on par with or somewhat worse than my general non-US historical background (read: I know almost nothing, with some random pockets of slight layman knowledge), and my Classics literary background is signficantly worse than my general literary background (no real reason, it's not like I had a vendetta against it or anything, I think I just didn't happen to have a good entry point). I've read the Odyssey last year and the Aeneid reasonably recently, and the Iliad not so reasonably recently (perhaps this will be the impetus for me to check out the Wilson translation), and Ted Hughes' translation of selected Metamorphoses.
Please feel free to tell me what books I really ought to be looking at next! (I believe there has been some discussion of Plutarch?) Feel free to wax eloquent about your favorite translations, whether it's something I've already read or not! Also please free to tell me any of your favorite Classics history you want, because I probably don't know it :)
(This is not supposed to be just formildred_of_midgard and selenak, although of course I expect them to be prime contributors. I know that many of you, probably all of you, know a lot about Classics that I don't know, so please inform me! Tell me your favorite things! :D )
But nooooow we are going to have a Classics salon!
My Classics background is, er, well, I guess my Classics history is pretty much on par with or somewhat worse than my general non-US historical background (read: I know almost nothing, with some random pockets of slight layman knowledge), and my Classics literary background is signficantly worse than my general literary background (no real reason, it's not like I had a vendetta against it or anything, I think I just didn't happen to have a good entry point). I've read the Odyssey last year and the Aeneid reasonably recently, and the Iliad not so reasonably recently (perhaps this will be the impetus for me to check out the Wilson translation), and Ted Hughes' translation of selected Metamorphoses.
Please feel free to tell me what books I really ought to be looking at next! (I believe there has been some discussion of Plutarch?) Feel free to wax eloquent about your favorite translations, whether it's something I've already read or not! Also please free to tell me any of your favorite Classics history you want, because I probably don't know it :)
(This is not supposed to be just for
mildred_of_midgard and selenak, although of course I expect them to be prime contributors. I know that many of you, probably all of you, know a lot about Classics that I don't know, so please inform me! Tell me your favorite things! :D )
no subject
Date: 2025-12-05 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-12-05 06:58 pm (UTC)Speaking of Graves, I was assigned to read part of his autobiography in college for some history course. There was one bit I found unintentionally funny, when he talked about his inability to master Ancient Greek -mi verbs (a particularly difficult group of verbs) and how it led to his not being able to get into the school he wanted and so he went to a different school and terrible things happened. I was at the time struggling with -mi verbs myself, so I took this passage to my classmates and I was like, "Look, this is how not being able to learn -mi verbs ruined Robert Graves' life!!!" And it felt a little better to know that even Robert Graves struggled with the monstrosity that is -mi verbs. :)
no subject
Date: 2025-12-08 12:30 am (UTC)And I love it when you bombard me with recs! I may not take all of them (or at least I probably won't take all of them at once, haha) but I'll definitely take some of them! :D