#Epic similes

[greekmythcomix]

✨What is an epic/Homeric Simile?✨

greekmythcomix.com/comic/simile/

Also a video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/lQqEK6-Cyt0

#simile #literature #literary device #homeric simile #epic simile #greek mythology #tagamemnon #greek myth #illustration #greek myth comix #comix #iliad #patroclus #menelaus

[a-book-of-creatures]

Looks sharp ❌

Tidied up ❌

Dashing ❌

Spruced up ❌

The image of neatness and cleanliness ❌

Like the anus of a snail ✅

#i love language #mwindo epic #snails #some similes are perfect

[4nywhere3lsewhere]

idk if Teucer being my favourite Greek in the Iliad is something I should admit...

#the epic simile comparing him to a child hiding behind his mother's skirt really resonated with me #I quite like Diomedes too

[silviusrex]

#classical civ #odyssey #epic simile #homeric simile #gcse #studyblr

[oasis-j]

I think putting things in the tags is the social media equivalent of whispering to your friend during class like "hey I don't wanna interupt but here's my paragraph of thoughts" and screen capping the tags is like your friend turning and raising their hand

#does this metaphor work #i think this might even be closer to an epic simile?? #odyssey vibes tbh #juice speaks

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

You'll think you have a handle on Shakespeare after reading enough of his plays and think yeah everything's cool I got this I can read the extended metaphors and epic similes and countless polysemies and wordplays and literary allusions. And then you'll read Hamlet and Bill beats the shit out of you all over again.

#shakespeare #lit

[epicthemusicalstuff]

What do you think Odysseus's childhood was like

I’m gonna go based off of only Epic Odysseus, cause I feel Odyssey Epic is a whole other can of worms.

Little Odysseus was definitely a perfect angel and a sarcastic little sh*t, (both at once, to different people). Around his mother? He was perfect, said his please and thank yous, and always behaved. I also believe though that he was always playing pranks on anyone and everyone, and when they would complain to his mom, she would deny it because “he is a perfect angel how dare you” (she knows that he does it and will definitely be scolding him later, but secretly she is proud of him). Sadly, I don’t think he got to stay like that for long. Epic doesn’t mention much really about his father (the odyssey does, but epic mentions very little, at least in the Final Cut of songs. The cut song Man Of The House goes into it a bit though so I will be going based off that). I think Odysseus didn’t have as much time for childhood as he should have had. When he was 9, Odysseus was effectively told that he would have to be king very soon, and that probably dampened a whole lot of his energy. I would guess that being told that, Odysseus would have tried to prepare as much as he could, focusing less on childhood and more on being ready to take over for his father. He then became King of Ithaca at 13, and with that much responsibility at a young age that I feel effectively ended what he views as his childhood. He probably became more withdrawn, similes perhaps less frequent. Then he meets Penelope, and I feel she helped him to feel his age again, young and full of life!!

Long story short, Odysseus was definitely loved, but his childhood was definitely not an ideal one. (Also, go check out the cut song Man of the House, it’s really good!)

#Epic the musical #wow I just kinda rambled there #I hope I get my point across though #odysseus #Anticlea #penelope #man of the house #i love that song

[birb-boyo]

Yeah so in “The Underworld”, you know Underworld Saga, EPIC the musical?

So you know how he goes, “bye mom :(“ then straight to “ALL I HEAR ARE SCREAMS-“

Yeah so like, grief right? A lot of people deal with it in different ways.

You think Ody confuses grief with anger? ‘Cause I do :)

Bro goes, “I see a wife with a man who is haunting, a man with a trail of bodies” and, Ody thinking that it’s not him, calmly asks, “WHO”

Why does he scream it? It could be frustration because bro was speaking in similes and metaphors, or because he thinks that someone has stolen his will to continue

Hell, the entirety of “Remember Them” is basically, “turn that grief into vengeance”

So um…YIPPEE :D

Oh please-

“I lost my best friend, I lost my mentor, my mom, 500 men gone, this cant go on, I must GET to see Penelope and Telemachus so if we must sail through DANGEROUS OCEANS AND BEACHES I’L GO WHERE POSEIDON WONT REACH US AND IF I GOTTA DROP ANOTHER INFANT FROM A WALL IN AN INSTANT SO WE ALL DONT DIE- THEN I’LL BECOME THE MONSTER-“

Like-

Case closed😌

#epic the musical #epic #epic the underworld saga #epic odysseus #epic eurylochus #epic polites #epic circe saga #epic cyclops saga #epic ocean saga #epic poseidon #epic troy saga

[hostilemuppet]

Brozone & Acquaintances: Fame and Blunders (The Rise And Fall, The Epic Highs And Lows Of Trolltwt) Part Six

split into a new post bc the last one (parts 1-5, crossposted on ao3 (including intermission)) got too long. as always, cowritten by the evil genius @squirrelpatties

cloud guy: infamous leaktwt contributor, with a specific fixation on branch (and to a lesser extent anyone close to branch, but branch is his #1). he got his hands on several embarrassing baby photos of branch, which even jd was concerned about, because "we never published those ones, they were just for grandmas wallet". some of his most well known leaks were "barb was admitted to rehab" "creek got a BBL" and "smidge had a miscarriage" (the latter overshadowing the other two by a significant margin)

sky toronto: egotistical millionaire who bought twitter and changed the logo into a tie. whenever creek posts a new off-the-wall conspiracy theory to his impressionable audience, sky replies that hes "Looking into this..." (theyre oomfs). many of his experimental party supplies have killed a disgusting amount of animal test subjects but that doesnt mean hes not willing to test on trolls. branch almost dies when hes hit by someones neuro-mind-link party popper.

smidge vs barbtwt: several influential barbtwt members with a tie to a certain infamous leaker who shall not be named (they paid him. he didnt need the money he just likes messing with people) get their hands on smidges medical records, initially to prove shes trans (shes not) but they instead learn about her miscarriage. instead of backing off, showing her sympathy and feeling guilty about this disgusting breach of privacy, they coordinate to make this public knowledge the next time smidges name trends. twitter is divided into "smidgetwt supporting her wholeheartedly through this horrible situation" "smidge antis who think 'she had it coming'" and "barbtwt happy that smidge is suffering". this sparks a debate on the ethics of trolls smoking while with eggs, with pro-egg-smokers saying its their body their choice and anti-egg-smokers saying "are you out of your damn mind". this is how smidge reveals she is simultaneously pro-egg-smoking and pro-life. its a bloodbath. she drops off the face of the internet never to be seen again........ unless 🤔

cloud guy (part 2): after years of providing the public service of "making branchs life miserable", cloud guys twitter account (and IP) is sadly permabanned when poppy demands sky toronto take action the third time branch is doxxed. sky toronto originally didnt care but after a solid week of her pestering him, he gave up, but only because he forgot to take "no doxxing" out of troll twitters TOS, and the backlash would be worse than hes willing to deal with right now. sleep well, soldier 🫡.

dante vs poppy: dante is branchs stalker. routinely stakes out by branchs pod to take photos of him for his shrine. its not a sex thing but whatever it is is way weirder than a sex thing. branch has moved pods 3 times but dante always manages to find him. perhaps he has friends in high places? regardless of the "how", the "what" is poppy wants him fucking Gonezo. unfortunately dante, as an ambassador for classical trolls, is not under poppys jurisdiction of pop trolls. she decides the only way to deal with the "rando stalking my partner" situation is to catch him with one of branchs traps. except, dante can fly, so rope traps arent effective and poppy needs to get creative and potentially very violent. she asks branch if he still has those spikes she begged him to take down. he does but he repurposed them as hat racks. now he needs to find somewhere else to put his hats!

gus tumbleweed: lowtiergod-esque fighting game streamer whos known for yelling and screaming at his opponents when he loses. he goes into long, drawn out, nonsensical similes and metaphors to describe how much he wants the player who beat him to kill themself or otherwise die painfully

tiny (in game chat): git rekt f4gg0t gus (on mic): someone outta hog tie ya and hang ya up in the middle o town like a pinata caught sleezin with the mayors daughter tiny (in game chat): bro

is invited to take part in a tournament for charity during pride month. when beaten by a gay guy he regresses to violently homophobic hatespeach. youd think thisd be a career ender but its amazing what "pretending to be attracted to your fellow straight male friends" can fix! he makes a halfhearted comment about thinking one of his streamer friends is handsome and/or has a nice ass and everything is back to normal, and he faces zero consequences for his actions.

holly darlin: fellow twitch streamer, although in different circles to gus tumbleweed. she is undefeated at chess but otherwise unremarkable, yet because shes a woman everyone hates her. after a year or two or constant hate she decides "fuck it" and commits to selling snake oil. the hell are they gonna do? call her a whore? shes already got every variation and misspelling caught in autofilter, buddy. she peddles for the same company that supplies the diet pills satin and chenille hype up on their podcast. its how she and satin meet. theyre lesbians now. it makes the hate holly gets SOOOOOO much worse but satins used to it so shes unaffected. chenille gets no say in the matter

synth: third and final twitch streamer (...so far). the gay guy who beat gus in a tournament for charity and was met with violent hatespeach. beforehand was one of the smaller creators in the tournament but afterward he blew up a lot more. he does a lot of charity streams, mostly for the benefit of disabled children, out of the goodness of his heart and NOT the glory like some OTHER trolls mentioned two paragraphs previous. hes just a good guy! also almost had a thing with branch when they were both confused about each others identities.

synth: today marks a year since i almost kissed a very attractive twunk in pop village and then found out he was a lesbian who thought i was a lesbian minuet: gay culture

broppy: theyre doing great! absolutely NO problems whatsoever! im sure it will last forever!

#text #twitter drama au

[catilinas]

hey Tate :^) randomly popping up to say that i just finished both 'The king must die' and 'The bull from the sea' in (almost) one go instead of working/eating/sleeping. and i can't thank you enough for recommending these books, the first one especially! so... maybe you have some other myth retellings or historical novels in mind to recommend?

hi!!! i’m so glad you enjoyed them / that i’m not the only person who felt like that reading them. the king must die especially Yeah. holy shit.

for Other Recommendations. the few ~myth retellings~ that i’ve read alas mostly are not novels. the genre of ‘myth retelling’ novels < the genre of weird long poems that Do Things with specific ancient texts rather than ‘myths’. but i do read a Lot of historical novels so i definitely have recommendations there! as long as you care about like. the roman republic. anyway here’s a list:

memorial - alice oswald. a ‘translation’ of the iliad, but only the death scenes (often just lists of names!) and the epic similes. it frames itself as yknow. a memorial. to the dead minor characters of the iliad but imo it also speaks to the futility of epic memorialisation. i have read the two page introduction approximately One Million Times.

nobody - alice oswald. you will be missing out if you don’t read this one against memorial. it’s a ‘retelling’ of ‘the odyssey’ and a lot of other myths that involve the sea at any point. a lot of the oresteia too. but it also never names any of its characters or indicates where each story starts or ends. oswald’s best poetry is always about water and this book is Mostly About Water so it snaps supremely.

war music - christopher logue. similar concept but completely different vibe to memorial. also a king poetic Selective reinterpretation of the iliad, but focusing mostly on combat scenes. i’m a big fan of the deliberate anachronisms and framing of the poem through camera angles / film terminology like it’s such a sexy way to ‘translate’ the omniscient moving narrator. AND it pushes you towards a v different emotional response than oswald like memorial is lowkey War And The Pity Of War (The Poetry Is In The Pity) while war music is like. uncomfortably fun. i think comparisons of ancient epic to modern (war-focused) action films can be Lazy or Done Badly (thinking only abt Violent Action Scenes Made Heroic and not the role of the listener/reader/viewer) but the elements of that in war music Work! also agamemnon gets called a piece of shit

tv men: hektor - anne carson. the spectatorship element of war music made more obvious and on a much smaller scale (it’s just one poem in a sequence). also v cool things going on w different degrees of Looseness of translation stacked inside one another

autobiography of red - anne carson. based on the fragments of stesichorus’ geryoneis but bcs the original is so incomplete it can’t really be a ‘retelling’ so much as an imagining of what the poem could and definitely Could Not be. technically a novel but A Novel In Verse. also one of my favourite books of all time ever. it’s in third person but the claustrophobia of the narrative style / the way the protagonist is often closed off to parts of his own thoughts is Weirdly Similar to theseus in the king must die? ALSO geryon ends up with a photography motif. this time we are also using it to think about the subjectivity of which fragments of a poem end up surviving / what gets cut off outside the edge of the photograph

red doc> - anne carson. rip so much carson But this is the sequel to autobiography of red. what happens when you live past the end of your myth. namedrops the battle of ager falernus. prometheus is there. (and also: h of h play - anne carson. i didn’t know whether to include this because it is A Play. like it’s a ‘translation’ (loosest sense of the word) of euripides’ hercules. but geryon (or a version of him) is there for long enough that it counts as the final installment of autobiography of red. to me.)

lavinia - ursula le guin. the second half of the aeneid told from the perspective of lavinia. BUT what sets it apart from other What If Myth—But Woman ‘retellings’ is like. v close engagement with the aeneid as a story and specifically A Story Written By An Actual Author who created his fictionalised past in very deliberate directions. like it doesn’t just treat the aeneid as an authorless body of mythic stories. vergil’s ghost is a character also. fate is real also. ALSO the setting in The Mythic Past As It Becomes The Historical Past + le guin’s decision to include vaguely supernatural elements but never the gods directly is like. very similar to the texture of worldbuilding in renault’s theseus books.

fire from heaven - mary renault. speaking of her. she wrote a whole bunch of other historical novels which you might like! this is the only other one i’ve read so far though. it’s the first of a trilogy about alexander the great. alexander has lot like theseus in that they are both deeply fucked up little guys :-)

dancing with the lion series - jeanne reames (@jeannereames hi 👋). also about the early life of alexander the great. i’ve only read the first one of these (again) but like. i read the whole thing in a day. the level of historical detail is also absolutely nuts. which makes sense bcs reames is an alexander specialist. but still!!!

cicero trilogy - robert harris. welcome to the rome zone. this is the series that got me into roman history :/ it follows the life of cicero from the perspective of his secretary tiro (the inventor of a shorthand system!). It Makes Roman Politics Fun I Promise. for real though these books manage to cover a very complicated period while also not getting bogged down in it And showing you cicero’s Wit. like i know i’m tumblr user catilinas but these books mean i can never really dislike cicero

roma sub rosa series - steven saylor. but if any books Could make me dislike cicero. well. these are a Long series of detective novels set at the end of the roman republic. catiline is there And He’s Sexy. you WILL get invested in the fictional detective’s family drama. also the author is gay and writes lgbt characters in a way that like. actually thinks about what that means In Ancient Rome. catilina’s riddle (book 3) is one of my favourite books of all time ever. also congrats to saylor for writing detective novels which really get into the function of the figure of the detective / Who Is The Detective Really Helping Here / cicero is a massive bastard etc

masters of rome - colleen mccullough. i’m just going to link the review that convinced me and also my entire family to read these. they are terrible they are amazing marcus livius drusus is there. they are massive they cover almost one hundred years of history sulla is sexy and kills people and you will know so much of the minutiae of roman politics If you get through them all

the key / the lock / the door in the wall - benita kane jaro. the key and the door in the wall are a duology about marcus caelius rufus and his relationships w catullus and then caesar. and also clodia. the lock was written later but i’d chronologically in between, and is about cicero and his conflict with clodius. BUT also all three books repeat A Lot of the same events, just from slightly different angles. the unreliability of the narrator helps / makes this v fun. the prose is A Vibe also a lot of the focus is less abt the political situation than like. caelius being young-ish as the republic collapses.

attis - tom holland. legally i have to include this :/ i don’t even know how to describe it like it’s a cryptid of a book you might have to get it through interlibrary loans. it’s not even brilliant it’s just so so weird and also the author cannot explain why bcs he can’t remember what happens in it. it’s about catullus (archeology student?) in a modernised alternate history version of rome (90s london?) being involved in a mystery involving ritual murders (tom holland HAS read girard. if you were wondering). there are also clowns.

hostis - vale aida ( @valeaida hi also 👋). first in an in progress series abt an alternate history version of the second punic war. i read the whole thing in a day instead of writing one of my essays earlier this year :/ have you ever read livy/silius and been like uurfgjhgh the narrative parallels between the lives of hannibal and scipio…… What If That Was A Book. you will go nuts over the barcids

augustus - john edward williams. my highschool philosophy teacher recommended this to me :-) it’s a kind of epistolary novel In That it’s framed as a collection of (imaginary) texts like. letters and biographies and memoirs, all showing Sides but never the entirety of The Emperor Augustus over the course of his life. i read this around the same time as A Source Book for the augustan period and was like. yeah.

#if this end up being formatted weird. whoops. i am on my Phone #book list #beeps

[greekmythcomix]

How I teach the Iliad in highschool:

I’ve taught the Iliad for over a decade, I’m literally a teacher, and I can even spell ‘Iliad’, and yet my first instinct when reading someone’s opinions about it is not to drop a comment explaining what it is, who ‘wrote’ it, and what that person’s intention truly was.

Agh. <the state of Twitter>

The first thing I do when I am teaching the Iliad is talk about what we know, what we think we know, and what we don’t know about Homer:

We know -

- 0

We think we know -

- the name Homer is a person, possibly male, possibly blind, possibly from Ionia, c.8th/9th C BCE.

- composed the Iliad and Odyssey and Hymns

We don’t know -

- if ‘Homer’ was a real person or a word meaning singer/teller of these stories

- which poem came first

- whether the more historical-sounding events of these stories actually happened, though there is evidence for a similar, much shorter, siege at Troy.

And then I get out a timeline, with suggested dates for the ‘Trojan war’ and Iliad and Odyssey’s estimated composition date and point out the 500ish years between those dates. And then I ask my class to name an event that happened 500 years ago.

They normally can’t or they say ‘Camelot’, because my students are 13-15yo and I’ve sprung this on them. Then I point out the Spanish Armada and Qu. Elizabeth I and Shakespeare were around then. And then I ask how they know about these things, and we talk about historical record.

And how if you don’t have historical record to know the past, you’re relying on shared memory, and how that’s communicated through oral tradition, and how oral tradition can serve a second purpose of entertainment, and how entertainment needs exciting characteristics.

And we list the features of the epic poems of the Iliad and Odyssey: gods, monsters, heroes, massive wars, duels to the death, detailed descriptions of what armour everyone is wearing as they put it on. (Kind of like a Marvel movie in fact.)

And then we look at how long the poems are and think about how they might have been communicated: over several days, when people would have had time to listen, so at a long festival perhaps, when they’re not working. As a diversion.

And then I tell them my old and possibly a bit tortured simile of ‘The Pearl of Myth’:

(Here’s a video of The Pearl of Myth with me talking it through in a calming voice: https://youtu.be/YEqFIibMEyo?sub_confirmation=1

And after all that, I hand a student at the front a secret sentence written on a piece of paper, and ask them to whisper it to the person next to them, and for that person to whisper it to the next, and so on. You’ve all played that game.

And of course the sentence is always rather different at the end than it was at the start, especially if it had Proper nouns in it (which tend to come out mangled). And someone’s often purposely changed it, ‘to be funny’.

And we talk about how this is a very loose metaphor for how stories and memory can change over time, and even historical record if it’s not copied correctly (I used to sidebar them about how and why Boudicca used to be known as ‘Boadicea’ but they just know the former now, because Horrible Histories exists and is awesome)

And after all that, I remind them that what we’re about to read has been translated from Ancient Greek, which was not exactly the language it was first written down in, and now we’re reading it in English.

And that’s how my teenaged students know NOT TO TAKE THE ILIAD AS FACT.

(And then we read the Iliad)

#man this week has been hard for classics teachers #Iliad #greek mythology #tagamemnon #greek myth #odyssey #homer #greek myth retellings #comix #greek myth comix #classics teacher #teaching #myth #history #ancient greek history #horrible histories #the idiots #teaching resources #teacher rant #Youtube

[incomingalbatross]

Reading Paradise Lost for school. my verdict so far is that Milton's good at making Satan sound pompous and delusional.

(also there's a lot of epic similes)

#book one starts out with rallying speeches in hell like 'this is a win for us actually!' and 'we'll really get God next time!!' #it's so STUPID #like. creatures. versus Creator. what's not clicking here

[professorpusset]

Free Classics Courses - With Certificates!

Studying "the classics" is a rich, rewarding and thoroughly enjoyable experience. Unfortunately these days, many of us lack the opportunity or resources to integrate ancient civilisations and languages into our formal education.

I, for one, am forever grateful that the advent of the digital age heralded new and interesting ways for society to share a wealth of information. Since the early noughties, I've tracked down free online courses in areas of personal interest. Naturally, the Classics is a subject I gravitated towards, and it saddened me to notice that over time free courses in the arts and humanities dwindled in favour of modern, digital, knowledge.

However, I am gladdened to share that OpenLearn (a branch of The Open University) have a growing selection of free Classics courses! All of these courses offer a free certificate to download and print on completion, and are drawn from the various undergraduate courses provided by the university proper.

These courses vary in length and difficulty, but provide an excellent starting point for anyone interested in the Classics, or who would like to sample university level content before committing to a more formal course of study.

Here is a full list of courses in the Classics category at OpenLearn, though I strongly suspect more will be added over time:

The Ancient Olympics: bridging past and present

Highlights the similarities and differences between our modern Games and the Ancient Olympics and explores why today, as we prepare for future Olympics, we still look back at the Classical world for meaning and inspiration.

Discovering Ancient Greek and Latin

Gives a taste of what it is like to learn two ancient languages. It is for those who have encountered the classical world through translations of Greek and Latin texts and wish to know more about the languages in which these works were composed.

Getting started on classical Latin

Developed in response to requests from learners who had had no contact with Latin before and who felt they would like to spend a little time preparing for the kind of learning that studying a classical language involves. The course will give you a taster of what is involved in the very early stages of learning Latin and will offer you the opportunity to put in some early practice.

Continuing classical Latin

Gives the opportunity to hear a discussion of the development of the Latin language.

Introducing Homer's Iliad

Focuses on the epic poem telling the story of the Trojan War. It begins with the wider cycle of myths of which the Iliad was a part. It then looks at the story of the poem itself and its major theme of Achilles' anger, in particular in the first seven lines. It examines some of the characteristic features of the text: metre, word order and epithets. Finally, it explores Homer's use of simile. The course should prepare you for reading the Iliad on your own with greater ease and interest.

Hadrian's Rome

Explores the city of Rome during the reign of the emperor Hadrian (117-38 CE). What impact did the emperor have on the appearance of the city? What types of structures were built and why? And how did the choices that Hadrian made relate to those of his predecessors, and also of his successors?

The Body in Antiquity

Will introduce you to the concept of the body in Greek and Roman civilisation. In recent years, the body has become a steadily growing field in historical scholarship, and Classical Studies is no exception. It is an aspect of the ancient world that can be explored through a whole host of different types of evidence: art, literature and archaeological artefacts to name but a few. The way that people fulfil their basic bodily needs and engage in their daily activities is embedded in the social world around them. The body is a subject that can reveal fascinating aspects of both Greek and Roman culture it will help you to better understand the diversity of ancient civilisation.

Library of Alexandria

One of the most important questions for any student of the ancient world to address is 'how do we know what we know about antiquity?' Whether we're thinking about urban architecture, or love poetry, or modern drama, a wide range of factors shape the picture of antiquity that we have today. This free course, Library of Alexandria, encourages you to reflect upon and critically assess those factors. Interpreting an ancient text, or a piece of material culture, or understanding an historical event, is never a straightforward process of 'discovery', but is always affected by things such as translation choices, the preservation (or loss) of an archaeological record, or the agendas of scholars.

Introducing the Classical World

How do we learn about the world of the ancient Romans and Greeks? This free course, Introducing the Classical world, will provide you with an insight into the Classical world by introducing you to the various sources of information used by scholars to draw together an image of this fascinating period of history.

Introducing Virgil's Aeneid

This free course offers an introduction to the Aeneid. Virgil’s Latin epic, written in the 1st century BCE, tells the story of the Trojan hero Aeneas and his journey to Italy, where he would become the ancestor of the Romans. Here, you will focus on the characterisation of this legendary hero, and learn why he was so important to the Romans of the Augustan era. This course uses translations of Virgil’s poem, and assumes no prior knowledge of Latin, but it will introduce you to some key Latin words and phrases in the original text.

Icarus: entering the world of myth

An introduction to one of the best-known myths from classical antiquity and its various re-tellings in later periods. You will begin by examining how the Icarus story connects with a number of other ancient myths, such as that of Theseus and the Minotaur. You will then be guided through an in-depth reading of Icarus’ story as told by the Roman poet Ovid, one of the most important and sophisticated figures in the history of ancient myth-making. After this you will study the way in which Ovid’s Icarus myth has been reworked and transformed by later poets and painters.

Getting started on ancient Greek

A taster of the ancient Greek world through the study of one of its most distinctive and enduring features: its language.

The course approaches the language methodically, starting with the alphabet and effective ways to memorise it, before building up to complete Greek words and sentences. Along the way, you will see numerous real examples of Greek as written on objects from the ancient world.

Travelling for Culture: The Grand Tour

In the eighteenth century and into the early part of the nineteenth, considerable numbers of aristocratic men (and occasionally women) travelled across Europe in pursuit of education, social advancement and entertainment, on what was known as the Grand Tour. A central objective was to gain exposure to the cultures of classical antiquity, particularly in Italy. In this free course, you’ll explore some of the different kinds of cultural encounters that fed into the Grand Tour, and will explore the role that they play in our study of Art History, English Literature, Creative Writing and Classical Studies today.

#classics #ancient greece #greek mythology #classical studies #classical education #greek #latin #the grand tour #dark academia #light academia #dark academia guide #homer #virgil #openlearn #free courses #online education

[eighthdoctor]

this is kinda a wordbuild-y question: do u think that elves would go for the long homeric epic-style poems? i think there is a compelling case for a long-lived race like elves to go for oral histories etc. and while maybe they transitioned away from that over time, I just think it'd be neat if jaina is reading the, like, elven Iliad reads aloud a bit like 'Muse, sing to me of the cataclysmic rage of Amisara' and about ten pages of gore in, sylvanas is like 'oh yeah that's my great-grandmother lol'. I just think that the elves would fucking love homeric similes. this is also a transparent ploy to smear my current hyperfixation on other interests sorry.

after some pondering i do not but that's ok bc i do have epic style poems for u in spades, just not from elfs.

the thing is, like, i think it's more likely that they'd rapidly move to externalize their memories, assuming that they don't have a radically different mental structure, there comes a point where you just do not want to remember any more things. you can use poetic structure all you want, but there are just too many things to remember.

the other point here is that oral history is 'uncivilized', which yes is a racist colonialist concept but this is the 'race war' planet. (PLEASE PLEASE note that oral history is just as reliable as any other form of record keeping, these are not MY opinions but. azeroth.) i firmly think elves (esp quel'dorei and shaldorei) would invent/adopt writing and run with it, disavowing oral history as Not Reliable Enough--both in terms of how their societies are structured and the real world references being made, we're not looking at cultures with a huge respect for spoken history.

however.

trolls.

especially outside zandalar, trolls have been displaced and overthrown and generally fucked around with so much that why write things down, you can lose a written text, you can't lose that long-form poem that contains the last thousand years of king names.

(also jungles Do Not like paper. and carving everything in stone is haarrrrdddd so only SOME things go in stone and everything else? oral.)

there are poems which are histories. there are poems which are family records. there are poems that are dramatizing that one time resk stole a bunch of goats from the shatterspear and spent 3 weeks hiding in the forests about it. there are poems that are tragedies to get everyone all weepy.

there are poetry improv contests that have very real social consequences, and a good poet can leverage her reputation into changing tribes or moving across continents if she so chooses.

quel'thalas has a poetry scene and for sure there are homeric epithets although i would need to shift my brain a bit to find sylvanas's, but i don't think epic poems/oral history weaves through their social fabric in the same way it did for archaic greece or pre-christian/early christian norse.

#asks for ts #timballisto #doin my best with Racism Is The Plot here #the power to manipulate belief #tangentially

[lone-rhapsodist]

Quick update since I finally have some time to write.

Things at the new school are going well. It's challenging, but in a different way than I'm used to. I'm still having to manage my voice, I'm not losing it anymore but I'm still straining a bit. I'm getting better hold of my classes though, and that is a pleasure. Also, the kids are generally lovely and most of them understand when you tell them about misbehaviour or mistakes. I'm enjoying teaching some ancient Greek again after 4 years. Also, we are doing some mini-modules with Year 7 and 8 students about 'Homer and Epic' and 'Augustus and Virgil' respectively. They're still young, so we have to keep it simple, but it's a bit hard to do that when you're talking about oral-formulaic theory... Anyway, somehow we managed, and we even got to read some beautiful extended similes in translation, which left some of them quite stunned. Mission complete! So yeah, very happy with things so far.

The Classics society is going well. We had a board meeting recently, and we have our book club coming up this Monday. 3 people have confirmed they'll attend. I know it doesn't sound like a lot, but for a recently formed society like ours, that's huge. I like the look of things so far. There's still lots of work to do and much room for development, but regardless, it's very promising.

As for Working Classicists, I mentioned some time ago that they had finally replied to my email. Their response was that, not only they were very happy to hear from me, but they were thinking very much along the same lines as me, as they were also about to soft-launch their own Discord server. So, they invited me to join, and they even offered me to become a Mod! I decided not to commit to that yet, but told them I would be very happy to join the server and take a look around. So far so good, there's definitely lots of lovely people there with the right kind of mentality when it comes to making Classics more accessible, inclusive etc, and it's pretty active for a new server. If they're okay with that, I might share an invite link on here, but I'll ask them first, just to be safe. There are still a few things to refine in terms of finding their form etc, but overall the server is already a beacon of hope in an otherwise desolate landscape, especially when it comes to making a Classics for the people that is also actually from the people -- for once at the forefront of the process of promoting the subject, not just subjected to it.

So yeah. Things are going well at the moment. Hopefully I'll be able to find some time to get started on other, more personal projects as well. But otherwise, everything is fine. Let's hope it stays like that, and that it keeps getting better -- little by little, one step at a time.

#lone-rhapsodist #personal #work #school #teacher #teaching #education #classics #tagamemnon #classics society #book club #working classicists #discord #server

[brightlotusmoon]

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The era of the epic album:

As rock, folk, and country music grew in popularity so did the ambitions of its best practitioners to make impressive albums. In the mid-60s, after the artistic and commercial success of Bob Dylan’s Bringing It All Back Home, musicians began to respond to and compete with each other to make epic music. With Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys’ symphonic Pet Sounds, “pop” had entered the era of the album. By the late 60s, rock musicians who wanted to be thought of as bold, innovative, and artistic were concentrating on long-playing records, at a time when the singles market was hitting a plateau.

Just after the watershed year of 1967 – when stunning albums by The Beatles (Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band) and Jefferson Airplane (Surrealistic Pillow) were released – more and more bands jumped on the album bandwagon, realizing that the format gave them the space and time to create different and challenging sounds. The days of record labels wanting a constant production line of three-minute singles were disappearing. By 1968, singles were being outsold by albums for the first time, helped by the increase in production quality of high-fidelity stereo sound and the idea of the album as an artistic whole. The time spent making long-players changed from hours to weeks, or even months.

This also came at a time when journalism began to give rock music more considered attention. In February 1966, a student called Paul Williams launched the magazine Crawdaddy!, devoted to rock’n’roll music criticism. The masthead boasted that it was “the first magazine to take rock and roll seriously.” The following year, Rolling Stone was launched.

The birth of FM radio:

Another important turning point in the rise of the album had been a mid-60s edict from the Federal Communications Commission, which ruled that jointly owned AM and FM stations had to present different programming. Suddenly, the FM band opened up to rock records, aimed at listeners who were likely to be more mature than AM listeners. Some stations – including WOR-FM in New York – began allowing DJs to play long excerpts of albums. Stations across America were soon doing the same, and within a decade FM had overtaken AM in listenership in the US. It was also during this period that AOR (album-oriented radio) grew in popularity, with playlists built on rock albums.

This suited the rise of the concept album by serious progressive-rock musicians. Prog rock fans were mainly male and many felt that they were effectively aficionados of a new type of epic music, made by pioneers and artisans. The prog musicians believed they were trailblazers – in a time when rock music was evolving and improving. Carl Palmer, the drummer for Emerson, Lake & Palmer, said they were making “music that had more quality,” while Jon Anderson of Yes thought that the changing times marked the progression of rock into a “higher art form.” Perhaps this was the ultimate manifestation of “pop” becoming “rock.”

The avant-garde explosion:

Lyrics in many 70s albums were more ambitious than the pop songs of the 50s and 60s. Similes, metaphors, and allegory began to spring up, with Emerson, Lake & Palmer emboldened to use the allegory of a “weaponized armadillo” in one track. Rock bands, sparked perhaps by Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, seemed to be matching the avant-garde explosion in the bebop era: there was a belief in making albums more unified in theme but more disparate in sound.

In a June 2017 issue of The New Yorker, Kelefa Sanneh summed up the persistent popularity of this new genre by saying, “The prog-rock pioneers embraced extravagance: odd instruments and fantastical lyrics, complex compositions and abstruse concept albums, flashy solos and flashier live shows. Concert-goers could savor a new electronic keyboard called a Mellotron, a singer dressed as a bat-like alien commander, an allusion to a John Keats poem, and a philosophical allegory about humankind’s demise – all in a single song (“Watcher Of The Skies”) by Genesis.”

Genesis were one of the bands leading the way in terms of epic music...

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#favorite music #epic music #music for my autism #music for writing