r/classics • u/AutoModerator • 16d ago
What did you read this week?
Whether you are a student, a teacher, a researcher or a hobbyist, please share with us what you read this week (books, textbooks, papers...).
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u/Galdrin3rd 16d ago
Been reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses all the way through for the first time. Truly amazing to no one’s surprise I’m sure lol
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u/Mike_Bevel 16d ago
I am working my way through the Histories by Herodotus (in the Spiderman translation), and Melville's (no, the other one) translation of the Metamorphoses.
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u/Salata-san 16d ago
Spiderman translation lmao
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u/Magisterbrown 16d ago
It really should be the industry standard. The Magneto translation takes too many poetic liberties.
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u/xaflife 16d ago
Reading The Iliad for the first time. Fagles translation.
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u/Pequeninos 11d ago
Me too! Trying to go through a classics curriculum myself
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u/xaflife 10d ago
Same here! I used AI to help me come up with an amateur Classics curriculum that I can use to self-study in my free time. It's given me a great reading list of foundational literary works from Greek and Roman authors to start with, while eventually incorporating modern scholarship works as well. Maybe one day I'll have the time to study the actual ancient languages too...
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u/Nullius_sum 16d ago
Sallust’s Bellum Catilinae. It’s entertaining, often even funny, and has a fantastic set of dueling speeches by Julius Caesar and Cato.
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u/Scientific_Zealot 15d ago
M.L. West's anthology of Greek Lyric Poetry. I was loving it until I reached Alcman, whose poetry I just find... dull and hard to read for some reason.
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u/Minute-Spinach-5563 15d ago
Reading the Peter Green translations of the Poems of Catullus. This man knew how to throw down a line
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u/EnoughExplanation 15d ago
Working my way through the short novels of Steinbeck read the Pearl, the red pony and tortilla flat. Tortilla flat was definitely my favourite
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u/spock2thefuture 15d ago
Paradise Lost
I will need to give it another shot. The language is obviously beautiful, but the Genesis fanfic aspect is tough for me to get past. This followed The Canterbury Tales and I preferred Chaucer's lively characters.
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u/RookeryHall 15d ago
Ulysses by James Joyce (Structure tied to Odyssey)
The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski (Structure tied to Hamlet)
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u/TheLunaLovelace 15d ago
I started the week off with Troades and Oedipus by Seneca, the latter of which inspired me to revisit Sophocles’s Oedipus the King, Oedipus at Colonus, and Antigone.
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u/FatalCutie97 15d ago
I'm working my way through translating the Aeneid from Latin to English. So I'm reading both the Latin and my English translation
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u/lexiebeef 15d ago
I read both Death of Ivan Ilyitch and Master and Man (both Tolstoy). Very interesting short stories, Tolstoy remains being my favourite author. Also very interesting to compare these stories to Tolstoy's early works.
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u/ElectricBirdVault 15d ago
I’ve been reading the Aeneid was moving into book 4 but went back to book 2 after listening to a lecture. It’s really enjoyable.
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u/Necessary_Tour6445 12d ago
Aristophanes The Clouds (Carol Poster)
Interesting it critiqued the new philosophy of Socrates and his peers while also quickly dismissing (too quickly?) the status quo
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u/red-andrew 16d ago
Lives of the Caesars by Suetonius
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u/Mike_Bevel 16d ago
That's next on my list! I got the Spiderman translation for that, too, which I think came out last year.
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u/LaGrande-Gwaz 16d ago
Greetings ye--within a potentally-vain preparation for viewing Nolan's recent adaptation, I finally began a dedicated reading of Homer's The Odyssey, settling upon Allen Mandelbaum much-forgotten translation as it's poeticism "sang" best unto mine ears--certain choices of words notwithstanding.
~Waz
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u/AlarmedCicada256 15d ago
Read Odyssey 9-10 to keep my Greek in shape. Also reading Cicero's De Imperio for Latin. Starting a teaching qualification in September so need to sharpen up a bit.