It's a Classical Life

I have had both Homer's The Iliad  and Stephen Fry's Troy  sitting on my book shelf for a whole year. I haven't picked up either one to read yet because I'm not sure which one I should read first. Having read Homer's The Odyssey  whilst on leave in 2020 I know how much of a commitment these older classics can be. And I really didn't want to start it and not finish it. Thus, as 2021 progressed and my mental acuity diminished (does that happen to you also??), both The Iliad and Troy  sat untouched and unread.   Now, this problem may be unique to me, I'm not sure, but there is such a growing market for modern remakes and adaptations these days that I have to wonder about the originals. Are the modern remakes dumbing us down because too many people find the originals wordy or unaccessible? Do the originals really matter anymore? Do these modern adaptations honour the original, or should the authors bring a more modern flavour to the sto...

  This summer I have decided to focus a little bit on Ancient Greece in my blog posts. First up, I thought I would give an introduction, just to set the scene. I’ve used a number of sources for this information; see the end of the post for a full resource list. If you already have a sound background on this time period, feel free to skip the following overview. If not, I suggest you do read as knowing the cultural and historical context in which a writer is writing will add to not only your understanding of the themes and style of writing, but also help with your critical analysis of the work.  There are many resources available today for the beginning student of Ancient Greece, some of them good, some of them not. I won’t try and recreate a whole unit of study on Ancient Greece here at this stage (though I may do in the future 😊) because for the self-educated student, working through a variety of sources is the best way to learn. What I will do is guide you through a brief i...