In the medieval era, we seemed to value the Aeneid more than the Iliad or the Odyssey; before then, they valued the Iliad most highly. Now, though, we seem to have decided that the Odyssey is the superior hero, then the Iliad, and lastly the Aeneid. What gives? It's easy to find films and literature about the Iliad and Odyssey, whereas most people don't even recognise the name Aeneid.
>>25486142Ancient Greece > Ancient Rome, simple as
>>25486142Medieval folks weren't reading Homer, period. And after that they valued the Iliad more (at least after the Renaissance, I don't actually know which one they preferred during it)
>>25486142well most people couldn't read greek during the middle ages whereas everyone educated could read latin, so that was a big part of it
Other than Ovid, Tacitus and Virgil, I really just do not care for Roman writing.
>>25486171>no Catullus, Tibullus and Lucretius
>>25486178Yes, that's correct.
>>25486142Unironic answer, the Victorians ruined everything
>>25486142Nobody cares about Virgil's fanfic.
>>25486151There's a famous French epic about Troy from the middle ages called Roman de Troie. It was hugely popular im Europe at the time
>>25486330I hope you aren't implying Homer didn't wrote fanfic as well.
>>25486431Medievals believed Homer's texts to be highly false. Sorry.
>>25486148TRVKE
It's because someone somewhere in ye olde medieval times decided the Aeneid was a profoundly Christian work. The Iliad has always been the best one by far.
>>25486142who the fuck is "we"?
OP should get into reception theory.
>>25486171“Pray, now,” with a sort of sociable sorrowfulness, slowly sliding along the rail, “Pray, now, my young friend, what volume have you there? Give me leave,” gently drawing it from him. “Tacitus!” Then opening it at random, read: “In general a black and shameful period lies before me.” “Dear young sir,” touching his arm alarmedly, “don’t read this book. It is poison, moral poison. Even were there truth in Tacitus, such truth would have the operation of falsity, and so still be poison, moral poison. Too well I know this Tacitus. In my college-days he came near souring me into cynicism. Yes, I began to turn down my collar, and go about with a disdainfully joyless expression.”“Sir, sir, I—I—”“Trust me. Now, young friend, perhaps you think that Tacitus, like me, is only melancholy; but he’s more—he’s ugly. A vast difference, young sir, between the melancholy view and the ugly. The one may show the world still beautiful, not so the other. The one may be compatible with benevolence, the other not. The one may deepen insight, the other shallows it. Drop Tacitus. Phrenologically, my young friend, you would seem to have a well-developed head, and large; but cribbed within the ugly view, the Tacitus view, your large brain, like your large ox in the contracted field, will but starve the more. And don’t dream, as some of you students may, that, by taking this same ugly view, the deeper meanings of the deeper books will so alone become revealed to you. Drop Tacitus. His subtlety is falsity, To him, in his double-refined anatomy of human nature, is well applied the Scripture saying—‘There is a subtle man, and the same is deceived.’ Drop Tacitus. Come, now, let me throw the book overboard.”“Sir, I—I—”“Not a word; I know just what is in your mind, and that is just what I am speaking to. Yes, learn from me that, though the sorrows of the world are great, its wickedness—that is, its ugliness—is small. Much cause to pity man, little to distrust him. I myself have known adversity, and know it still. But for that, do I turn cynic? No, no: it is small beer that sours. To my fellow-creatures I owe alleviations. So, whatever I may have undergone, it but deepens my confidence in my kind. Now, then” (winningly), “this book—will you let me drown it for you?”“Really, sir—I—”But you carry Tacitus, that shallow Tacitus. What do I carry? See”—producing a pocket-volume—“Akenside—his ‘Pleasures of Imagination.’ One of these days you will know it. Whatever our lot, we should read serene and cheery books, fitted to inspire love and trust. But Tacitus! I have long been of opinion that these classics are the bane of colleges; for—not to hint of the immorality of Ovid, Horace, Anacreon, and the rest, and the dangerous theology of Eschylus and others—where will one find views so injurious to human nature as in Thucydides, Juvenal, Lucian, but more particularly Tacitus?
>>25486588When I consider that, ever since the revival of learning, these classics have been the favorites of successive generations of students and studious men, I tremble to think of that mass of unsuspected heresy on every vital topic which for centuries must have simmered unsurmised in the heart of Christendom. But Tacitus—he is the most extraordinary example of a heretic; not one iota of confidence in his kind. What a mockery that such an one should be reputed wise, and Thucydides be esteemed the statesman’s manual! But Tacitus—I hate Tacitus; not, though, I trust, with the hate that sins, but a righteous hate. Without confidence himself, Tacitus destroys it in all his readers. Destroys confidence, paternal confidence, of which God knows that there is in this world none to spare. For, comparatively inexperienced as you are, my dear young friend, did you never observe how little, very little, confidence, there is? I mean between man and man—more particularly between stranger and stranger. In a sad world it is the saddest fact. Confidence! I have sometimes almost thought that confidence is fled; that confidence is the New Astrea—emigrated—vanished—gone.”
>>25486142It was the Romans. Classical education was based off of them until greek was kind of rediscovered in the late middle ages, then it took a while and the romantic poets started going back to the greeks idealising them as the founders of democracy, also as a fuck you to older poets who were part of the establishment
>>25486431Imagine writing fanfic about someone else's fanfic.
>Threatened with disappearance during the literary hiatus at the end of the classical age, the Odyssey was cherished and preserved in the Byzantine Empire, as a Greek text; translations were made into Georgian and possibly Syriac, but Homer was left out of the Greek-to-Arabic translation movement. The Odyssey was rediscovered by Renaissance humanists, who worked on new Latin translations [...] Criticized by both neoclassicists and romantics for its perceived imperfections, the Odyssey was nevertheless widely circulated, and functioned as a long-term project for noted authors in their respective national vernaculars [...] translations in classical form were also encouraged, as samples of cultural prestige, by authoritarian or totalitarian regimes on the right and left [...]
>>25486142Retarded thread that shows /lit/ is fucking done.Here is your answer:1) Catholic europe didn't have access to full text of Illiad and Odyssey until reneissance period, when greek scholars brought them to Italy. Before that they had latin summaries at most (which were not that impressive)2) Vergilius was extremely popular in medieval catholic europe, because they thought he was christian through misunderstanding of his fourth eclogue (pic related). Medieval scholars thought it's about coming of Jesus (it's about newborn of one Vergilius' patron)
>>25486302explain
>>25486401Yes but they weren't using Homer as a source, they were using Dares and Dictys mostly
>>25486401there was also highly popular 17th century french novel about telemachus
>>25486142Tried to read the Iliad recently and got filtered by them describing every single clan that came to the war
>>25488500>filtered by the most famous pleb filter in literary history
>>25488500stick to anime then, brain-damaged jizzstain
>>25486142again, who the fuck is "we"?
>>25488500Read it again. No one will know if you skipped a few lines here and there. Or don't lol there's a million good books out there
>>25486171>no Sallust or HoraceNGMI
>>25486940>because they thought he was christian through misunderstanding of his fourth ecloguelol christards being stupid will never stop being a thing
>>25486142who the fuck is "we" cocksucker
>>25488951>there's a million good books out thereand not a single one better than Homer
>>25488500I'll never understand why people make a big stink about the catalogue of ships. It's one (1) of 24 books, and it's not like you need to memorise every single name or anything.
>>25488500Weakling.
>>25486142>What gives? Anglo Saxons are Greekaboos, and we live in an Anglo Saxon world.
>>25486151I'm pretty sure that people read Latin translations of Greek works.
>>25495373Every sane, intelligent person is a greekaboo.
>>25488500You just gotta imagine a bard reciting the tale with listeners gathered around a table or a campfire or something.Then it becomes somewhat humorous.
>>25486142I'm re-reading the Iliad and it has really hit me hard. This is quite a depressing story, to see people fall to pride, alienate their community and loved ones, question the purpose for living, and face inescapable doom. It is definitely something that feels different when you are older, especially if you are a mentally ill loser with no friends or family.
>>25497108Holy fuck you're onions
>>25486142Illiad is the most totalizing vision of the Hellenic aristocratic world and its worldview, its often egotistical and fickle temperament, its obsession with lineages, its tragedies and pockets of great deeds, etc. Theres a reason the catalogue of ships was a weirdly popular in the Hellenic world, while we dont much care for it. Its an encyclopedia of the Hellenic aristocratic world that lost its meaning once that Hellenic-aristocratic way of life disappeared.Aeneid is the most civilizational one, where heroes are not marked by their aristocratic egoism, but by their contributions to a greater cause. the characters are less conflicted and flawed and more virtuous and 'well behaved', which aligns well with big empires where heroism comes from contributing to the empire, not from self-interested great deeds. It also fits the highly moralistic and idealizing tastes of the medieval period. The Odyssey is the most individualistic of the bunch. Like the illiad it has this aristocratic temperament and egoism that later philosophers and theologians would condemn it for, but unlike the Illiad, this egoism does not clash against itself to form a tragedy. Its about individuals craftily navigating and dealing with various social institutions and relations for their own gain and fame. It does not surprise me that it fits the modern capitalist world very well.
>>25497617Illiad is not hellenic you dumb retard. Change your tone when talking about subject you know nothing about.
>>25497618Ya i phrased that wrong, it was the most important epic *to* the Hellenic world not *from* that world, the world of the Illiad itself is some mixture of Mycenaean and classical Greece. And fuck off with that 'watch youre tone' bullshit when youre the one typing like a 14 year old with anger issues
>>25488500Im forcing myself to go through with it, it makes no sense. The A-ians, of B, who hold C, D and E, and have their houses in F.What is this shit?
>>25497693Is not obvious if B is a larger region and C, D and E are placed within B, or B is just a place that fit his meter and is actually C that is the larger region, or there is no hierarchy at all and they are all equivalent.
>>25497386You'll understand when your balls hang lower.
>>25486171I fuck with my nigga Cicero
>>25497386/lit/ when anon enjoys anything ever
>>25486142I wrote this before but I need to do it again in case anyone else got this from reading book 2 of the Iliad:My nigga Thersites was right about everything, he is the only one looking out for the common soldier but Homer does the thing where draws him as the crying 'jack and Agamenon and Odysseus as the Chad.
