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Books such as The Illiad, The Odessy, old stuff really, do we consider these books good because they are good or are they good because that is all we have from that time period? Same with Shakespeare, were there crappy or even mediocre writers during that time period?
I have the feeling that if you read any of the books you mention, you'll get the answer. ;)
i found teh odyssey quite remarkable simply becuase of its story as well as the poetry and teh prose and how hard it msut have been and whats said in it. I recognize that shakespeare is great even if Im not a big fan simply because of what he's accomplished in each story... I think that there are more books out there that should be considered classics even if they were only wrotten a few years ago for instance, Fugitive Pieces and life of Pi, cant think of anymore at the moment, but their up there.... read them several years ago.
Most novelists are geniuses to be able to put down with such strength the most amazing stories possible
I think that these are books that should be read so that the parodys become clearer, even the parodys made not long after the end of BC or the greeks reign. There are limitless refences and analogies to the work, and to have it as a background helps.
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Originally Posted by papayahed
Wrong, Do read The Oddysey and you'll change your statement. I havent finished it yet, but i have read a simplified story of the illiad and oddysey in this book called world mythlogy..they are awesome!
And personally, i dont really like shakespeare, and the only book that i really read throughly is only shakespeare sonnets. But you were wrong there when u wrote about crappy writers in elizabethan period. At that time, there was also a wellknown play writer named Ben Jonson. Yet, his works were considered not as good as Shakespeare's. He was the poet laurete during the reign of Quen Elizabeth at that time. His most wellknown play is "Every Man in His Humour".
I think both might be true;i.e., we sometimes study/read them because they are the only literary work we have from a certain period "Beowolf" and sometimes because they are good examples. It is lucky for us if they are fall under both categories. We don't have many works like The Illiad from that area but it is also true that it is a marvelous work by any standard.
Well for me, if i don't consider it good then i wont read it. Eventhough it's the only work which was produced in its time
i really like old literature. i've just finished a course on old english literature and i enjoyed it very much. we had beowulf, the wanderer, the dream of the rood et al. of course we used modern translation because old english is pretty different from the modern one. it's fascinating that first of all those texts managed to survive for such a long time and secondly that actually problems described there are so similar to ours, people do not change :)
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Originally Posted by subterranean
How can I be wrong when I asked a question. "Were there crappy writers?"
and I have read both the Odessy and the Illiad and neither one knocked my socks off.
well the odyssey knowcked my socks off, but i guess it completly depends on what the reader likes, i love Marion Zimmer Bradley's other books but didn't so much like mists of avalon, thought it was too long...
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Originally Posted by papayahed
Ok, sorry. I suppose i mis-read you. And i think of course there were crappy writers in that period, and infact in all periods of the literature history. But why would people want to discuss about them?
Well about the greek mythology, well perhaps it's a matter of preference. I mean not everyone like scific or romance book. So in this case, you find those two books ordinary. And it's no big deal i think. Afterall, it's art :)