Tag Archives: Homer

rodin and the ancient greeks, & the iliad

Posted on May 20, 2018 by Houyhnhnm

rodin and the ancient greeks i didn’t realise that rodin spent a lot of time in london, and that he kept visiting the british museum to see the elgin marbles and other greek sculpture; it seems (at least according to … Continue reading →

Posted in Exhibition, Novel, Poem, Translation | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Statius: “Achilleid”

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Houyhnhnm

This 1st-century AD Latin poet died after writing a book and a half of his epic on Achilles; intended no doubt to build on the success of his Thebaid, about the civil war between the sons of Oedipus Polynices and … Continue reading →

Posted in Poetry, Translation | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

“The Song of Achilles” by Madeline Miller

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Houyhnhnm

A fascinating attempt to novelise the Iliad, taking the material beyond the confines of Homer’s poem, both before and after, but not falling into the trap of having to tell the whole bloody story in detail, wooden horse and all … Continue reading →

Posted in Novel | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

The Hobbit

Posted on December 30, 2012 by Houyhnhnm

In brief, it’s The Hobbit made into what it was after LOTR. In the appendices to LOTR JRR manages to fit the two novels together, sorting out the role and nature of Gollum’s ring, and making the Necromancer in Mirkwood, … Continue reading →

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“The Poet of the Iliad” by H.T. Wade-Gery

Posted on October 28, 2012 by Houyhnhnm

An eye-opening book; why did no one put this my way when I was studying Homer properly (or perhaps they did)? Probably because there was a reaction against detailed historical reconstruction, seen as sterile and unliterary. Yet Wade-Gery’s lectures are … Continue reading →

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The Social Network

Posted on October 25, 2012 by Houyhnhnm

Miserable film – what twats. Why didn’t the Winklevosses or Savarin just walk away and have an ordinary life? And Harvard – what an obnoxious place. And the students – both sexes – how horrible are they, and how horrible … Continue reading →

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“What is a Classic?” T.S. Eliot

Posted on October 24, 2012 by Houyhnhnm

Lecture to the Virgil Society in 1944, in its second year. Starts long-Eliotly, with lots of Latin-based words and the kind of categorising I always imagine is rife in the German philosophers I haven’t read, but when he gets on … Continue reading →

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“The Lost Books of the Odyssey” by Zachary Mason

Posted on June 6, 2012 by Houyhnhnm

One of the best books I have read. 44 short (some very short) stories on the theme of Odysseus and his return from Troy. Poetic, mysterious, playful, jumping around in time, each one, for lovers of Homer, a pre-sleep daily … Continue reading →

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Tellus Issue 3

Posted on April 22, 2012 by Houyhnhnm

The third issue of Ailsa Hunt’s journal of poetry inspired by the classical world. Brian Walter’s “Metrodorus of Skepsis” introduces (to me) this scholar who famously used 360 regions of the zodiacal sky as mnemonic locations for ‘everything he’d ever … Continue reading →

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Guilt

Posted on January 29, 2012 by Houyhnhnm

No one knows the origin of the Old English word “gylt” (“a crime”), but by the late 17th century it had developed its modern meaning of “a sense of having done wrong”, rather than just the “doing wrong” in the … Continue reading →

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