⋆｡˚ ༘ ⋆·˚✧ literature stuffs! ✧˚·⋆༘ ˚｡⋆
I have a goal, or maybe more of a pipe dream, to read every major influential work in the history of literature. I have not gotten very far, but on the bright side: There is so much beauty left to experience! This is a selection of the major works I have read so far (and a few on my immediate to-read list) in chronological order, grouped by time period.
I am interested in human universals and intertextuality: parallels, connections, etc. As in biology, there must be a LUCA for mythological and literary motifs...
✧ bronze age ✧
The world we live in has been shaped by Judeo-Christian beliefs to an unfathomable extent—but one can still get glimpses of what life was like before through the myths of Inanna and Gilgamesh!
Misc. thoughts▼
- The Epic of Gilgamesh is one of my favorite works. I am continually amazed that our earliest recorded ancient epic is about a man facing his own mortality and death—the one inescapable human universal.
- Or one of two inescapable human universals, the other being homoeroticism? Gilgamesh explicitly loves and embraces Enkidu "as a wife" multiple times in the text. Interesting that the ancients did not bat an eye at this, but four millennia later here we are...
- Goddesses being progressively stripped of their clothing and jewelry as symbolism for losing their powers seems to be a common motif across the Mediterranean: compare Inanna's descent into the underworld with the story of Aphrodite and Anchises.
✧ classical antiquity ✧
Everything there is to say about the human condition has probably already been said in a classical epic or play. Other words I enjoyed but not pictured here: The Theban Plays, Aeschylus' Oresteia, Hesiod's Theogony, Prometheus Bound, the Homeric Hymns, pre-Socratic fragments, and several of Plato's dialogues.
The dialogues in particular are some of the funniest pieces I have had the pleasure of reading.
Misc. thoughts▼
- Daphnis and Chloe by Longus is a favorite of mine which I don't see many people discussing. It is a beautiful tale of two childhood friends falling in love, and the descripions of their growing infatuation with each other are extremely relatable all these centuries later, and will be for as long as humanity continues to love one another.
- I am biased towards The Iliad over the Odyssey, simply because I love characters like Achilles: honest, stubborn, even "simple" compared to the wily Odysseus. And I find Achilles' relationship with Patroclus to be possibly the most tragic of all. What would you do if your "most beloved companion" donned your armor and died in your place?
- I spend too much time thinking about translations:
- I adored Caroline Alexander's translation of the Iliad, for balancing poetry with faithfulness to the original Greek.
- For the Odyssey, I read Fagles', which was a beautiful rendition, so beautiful that it is probably more Fagles' Odyssey than Homer's.
- I discovered Stanley Lombardo through his translations of the Aeneid and Metamorphoses and prefer his style the most; it carries a certain strength, directness, and energy that I am so enchanted by.
- As a rule, I try to avoid rhymed translations. It is too painful imagining what has been lost in translation for the sake of rhyming.
- Shamefully have yet to read Euripedes, Aristophanes, Aristotle, the Argonautica, and pretty much every Roman besides Ovid, Virgil, and the guy who wrote Meditations.
✧ medieval world classics ✧
Unsure about the grouping of such vastly different texts from different regions, but this will do, at least temporarily. Rumi is one of my favorite poets; I've also read half of The Tale of Genji (it's 1200 pages and at least 300,000 words...) but have yet to go through the other two pictured here.
I actually own copies of the Shahnameh and the Tale of Genji—which makes me very happy since I usually don't get to buy most of the books I read.
Misc. thoughts▼
- South Asian poetry is greatly indebted to Rumi and all of the great Sufi writers.
- I did not drop The Tale of Genji because I disliked it; it was actually quite unlike anything else I'd read, and I enjoyed most of it. But the fact remains that it is a massive book, and I simply needed a break, which has now turned into an indefinite hiatus.
✧ classical antiquity ✧
I read Simon Armitage's wonderful translations for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Owl and the Nightingale, and Beowulf. I own the gorgeous Everyman's Library edition of the Divine Comedy pictured here!
Not my favorite period, despite enjoying most of these... The Canterbury Tales, Decameron, and Le Mort d'Arthur are high priority on the to-read list.
Misc. thoughts▼
- The Owl and the Nightingale is one of the funniest pieces I've read, so I had to mention it here, even though it's relatively more obscure compared to the others. It's a poem narrated by a guy who eavesdrops on a highly vulgar argument between an owl and an nightingale. Simon Armitage's translation is just delightful (it rhymes but I don't care).
- I only discovered after buying The Divine Comedy that this edition... rhymes... and as already said before, in about 90% of cases I really have a hard time reading rhyming translations. It is beautifully done by Allen Mandelbaum, but I could only get through Inferno. (The edition itself is stunning and I did not return it!)