05-25-2007, 06:47 AM | #11 | |
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One possible hypothesis, which would be hard to prove, given the lack of information of the Homeric age, is that what Homer did the same thing with the Iliad and the Odyssey that Vergil did with the Aeneid-- that is, he compiled the legends of the Trojan War that took place 400 years earlier. Wouldn't be the first time it happened-- in fact, this seems to be a real tendency for ancient civilizations. The Enuma Elish, the Rig Veda, or even the Book of Genesis and the Pentateuch-- they all do the same thing.
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05-25-2007, 06:48 AM | #12 |
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If you knew how much time I spent today alone trying to get through as little as I did, you probably would think differently.
Gratefully, you don't know how much time I spent today alone trying to get through as little as I did.
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05-25-2007, 07:16 AM | #13 | |
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05-25-2007, 03:48 PM | #14 | |
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I hadn't thought much about that the Romans believed they descended from Troy apart from the Aeneid. That really helps explain their deification of their emperors beginning with Augustus. How could I forget that Lombardo as well just issued a translation of the Aeneid.
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05-25-2007, 04:19 PM | #15 | |
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That was my next question. Would you recommend Lombardo's translation for the Aeneid as well?
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05-25-2007, 04:58 PM | #16 | |
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Key Homeric traits reflect this time, and the men were so absolutely powerful and compelling that they served as models for other leaders to follow. Some of these traits are timé, or honor (shown when the Greeks followed Helen, the woman who had been taken by Paris from Greece into Troy, to redeem the offense against him); areté, virtue or excellence; and Xenia, a sort of hospitality to foreign friends (shown in one episode of the Iliad, when a Greek fighting a Trojan recognizes him as a descendant of a man who had been a guest-friend (xenos) with an anscestor of his. They immediately agreed to spare each other and go find other greeks/trojans to kill). Others could surely be listed.
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05-25-2007, 04:59 PM | #17 | |
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http://cougarguard.com/forum/showthr...ighlight=Homer
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05-27-2007, 03:18 PM | #18 |
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I urge to re-read the story of Gilgamesh, it is actually quite moving how the selfish Gilgamesh upon the death of his friend Enkidu seeks out a path of wisdom by the head God.
The poet for which we have the majority of the legend wrote his Poem more than a millenium after the historical king about whom the legend was generated. The poet-priest Sin-leqi-unninni writes beautifully about his city which we now view in the past. The king lived or died approximately 2750 BCE and its first forms were found in Sumerian written around 2100 BCE, but the poet wrote in Akkadian around 1200 BCE, having borrowed the theme from a thousand years before. In it the King Gilgamesh is to be tamed by the Wild Man Enkidu, who is tamed by Shamat, the love priestess. The themes are nonpuritanical and must have been quite a shock for Victorian archaeologists. It is a beautiful tale.
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05-30-2007, 01:57 PM | #19 | |
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Awesome.
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05-30-2007, 02:13 PM | #20 | |
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Milman Parry did a lot of research in the nature of oral epic in the 1930s. Certain stock epithets helped the poet maintain the meter while each telling was undoubtedly slightly different. Pisistratus is supposed to have ordered the first comprehensive written compilation of Homer in the late 6th century, and the men who did this undoubtedly compared various (written?) versions. So, while Homer is credited with the kernel, the anachronisms and the various dialects that show up in the text indicate it is an amalgamation of multiple sources.
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