Rise Up, Oh Heart, For There is Another Battle to Win

katsuklyuuri:

questions the iliad is meant to inspire: 

• how free are we really, as human beings, to make our own decisions?
• where should the line be drawn between heroism and cruelty?
• ought the quest for individual honor to be prioritized over the lives of others?
  

questions i have:

• what accounts for the bro code dissonance of agamemnon stealing achilles’s girl when he’s literally leading an army in a war that was started because paris stole his brother’s girl?
• is diomedes single?
• to the nearest thousand, how many heart emojis would achilles text to patroclus in an average day if the technology were available?
  

(Source: galangrants, via yea-lets-do-this-shit)

thoodleoo:

thoodleoo:

so in my greek class we were talking about oral composition and how something like the iliad must have been composed, and my prof asked us to consider how we would rapidly compose something like poetry on the spot. and i think it was a really important exercise not just for understanding the construction of an oral epic but also for reminding us of how great works can come from supposedly “humble” origins. so if anyone is ever snobby about their homer, just remind them that, as my professor put it, the iliad is basically ancient freestyle rap, and homer is much closer to jay z than to f. scott fitzgerald

basically what i’m saying is please imagine homer asking someone to give him a beat on the lyre and then dropping the sickest fucking meter ever. the ill-iad, by lil homie

(via bonehandledknife)