Any one interested in memorizing the Iliad?

Or, say, as much of it as might be reasonably possible in a year? I thought it might be fun as a group activity and could include commentary and discussion of parts as we go.

Let me know if you are interested. I'll be doing it whether anyone else would like to or not, but it would be nice to have company!

In English?

Yes, English. Sorry, I should have realized this group has many learned members who can read the Ancient Greek!

Either way, hard stuff!

a friend of mine has memorized the first two books of Fagles' translation, which he would recite at festivals.
it was quite a daunting project to get even that far, and he would take a break between book one and book two to catch his breath and do a quick catch-up on the next part.
quite an impressive presentation though!

Ah,if I were 20 and this were Paris!

#6 ... If I were 20 and this were Paris I would be with drunk with some chick somewhere, not memorizing the freaking Iliad LOL

#1 ... I admire your spunk. Alas, I am not qualified for such a Herculean task. If you achieve it, I think you should do YouTube videos of each chapter recitations and embed them in the thread. I would be very impressed! Greek or English ...

If you have time and patience to memorize the Iliad, you have time to learn Greek, which would enable you to read, and memorize, it in the original, which, believe me, is better than Fagles (and more memorable).

If I was memorizing in English, I think I would select the Lattimore because I like the translation better. I have not taken enough Greek to be proficient, especially for something archaic like the Iliad. Still, I would love to be able to read it in Greek, even if I don't have the mnemonic power to memorize it in either language. Sometimes I like to read passages in my Loeb edition, even though that's not a favorite translation (Murray) just for the fun of matching the Greek on the opposite page with the English. If I didn't have so many interests and so little time, I think I would read the Iliad every day ...

#10: "I think I would read the Iliad every day ..." Good suggestion. I'm going to start doing it.

Homer, of course, had the whole thing in his head, but in some ways he made it up as he went along when reciting, using set passages, formulas, etc, and probably adding and omitting sections according to his audience and the time available. The professional rhapsodes who followed might have worked in teams, so each one might not have memorized the whole thing. This is speculation on my part.

I have just finished reading the first book of the Iliad in Greek after working through a crash course to refresh what was left of the ancient Greek that I was taught at school. Homer is great even in translation, but nothing beats the original. It feels like pure magic every time I read those nearly 3000 thousand year old verses to myself and they slowly start to make sense.

#11 -- For awhile, I had the Iliad at bedside and read a little every night, like Alexander. It is not a bad way to cap off the day

#13 I envy you, my friend! I originally embarked on classical Greek lessons just so I could do this, but after a year I realized I did not have the time to properly invest

On: Title and #1

I was stunned by the suggestion at first, but I began thinking I will memorize Iliad Book VI, as I know some sequences in it already.

On 2-4:
Iʻm assuming the Greek text is allowed, though not required. Tim, you said "either way, hard stuff!". Yes, but i think,
for anyone with a knowledge of Greek and some knowledge of the meter, the Original would be easier to memorize
than the translation. The latter has no mnemonic devices. A s I remember it Lattimore usually doeosnʻt translate the
formulaic phrases and lines -- I suppose on the grounds that he doesnʻt want to be repetitious.

15 : I was going to suggest that it would be a lot easier in Greek, but if in English then Pope or Chapman might be easier translations to learn. But many people don't find that those translations "sound like Homer." A perennial topic of discussion, not to be revived here, I hope, but the question of which translation is easiest to memorize is an interesting one.

"Pope or Chapman ...dontʻ . . .ʻsound like Homerʻ (16)

Right, they donʻt, but to my mind, they sound as much --or as little --like Homer as do Fagles and Lattimore. I agree that Pope and Chapman would be more memorizable.
I admit the more traditional translators: Lang, Leaf, and Myers
DO sound something like Homer to me, but thatʻs just an impression. Thinking that Homer "sounded like"
a slightly-archaizing Victorian prosist gentleman is in the same league with believing that God spoke early 17th century English and that therefore only
the King James version of the Bible should be read.

If I was to memorize in English, I would try Lattimore, but I think Butler's prose translation might actually be easier to recall

@ 18 : You could handle it in Greek.

It's possible. Stanley Lombardo has a posting of his reading it so you can compare how you sound.

http://www.wiredforbooks.org/iliad/

Anyone up to the challenge?

I think I'll try The Hunting of the Snark instead. In the original English. Though it's probably good in German.

Found someone doing this-

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCb6gQ-us023So3MCp98fHVg?feature=mhee

Good info, too!

I have just started reading Fagles's translation. There is no way I would try to memorize it, but I admire the woman linked to in 22.

Robert

I question whether in archaic times it was usual to get the complete Iliad or Odyssey by heart. I suspect the rhapsodes worked in teams.

My daughter loves The Odyssey and is genuinely keen to learn Ancient Greek so that she can read some of it in the original. Can anyone suggest a teach-yourself book or website to get her started. She's bright and curious but only 12 (and we're not Christian so prefer to avoid things on U Tube related to reading the Bible).

Here are a couple of threads on studying Greek:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/97003
http://www.librarything.com/topic/90834

Robert

This website might be useful too

http://www.textkit.com/

If reading Homer is the main goal, Homeric Greek by Clyde Pharr is a good choice. It's also freely available at http://www.textkit.com/learn/ID/165/author_id/81/

It is a teaching course based on book I of the Iliad, not the Odessey. There is a comparable book by Frank Beetham based on the Odessey book V, which I went through but wouldn't recommend.

Learning Homeric Greek is more difficult than learning Attic Greek from what I understand.

Depends on where you start from I guess. I don't think it really is more difficult. But it is different from "standard" Attic Greek (because it's both Ionic and more archaic). It's a bit like first having to learn modern English (as a foreign language), and then having to tackle Shakespeare with just that knowledge.

I never became proficient in French. Nevertheless in my college courses I was just thrown into Rabelais. Reflecting more on the Chaucer model than the Shakespeare one I've since wondered how they could have done that to us; they just expected us to make the adjustment.

Robert

Well I just took one year of Attic Greek online and found it quite challenging on its own ... I think I would do it over if I could find an intensive classroom environment. It was the most difficult thing I ever did since quitting smoking ....

Yeah, what I meant to say is that if courses were given so that one starts out learning Homeric Greek those would probably not be more difficult. You would have to start from scratch either way. The problem is that they first teach you Attic Greek, and then suddenly there's a "and now for something completely different" moment.

I had a old fashioned European education and was obliged to learn both Latin and Greek in "high school" (the two systems don't quite compare). I must admit though that I haven't used Latin much after my 18th and Greek hardly at all. So it's all unbelievably rusty by now.

I do hold on to my old copy of Homer in Greek for sentimental reasons though. (Sort of a family heirloom: my father and elder brother had used it before me, and it's pencil annotated by all three of us).

Edited to fix typo.

Agreed that Homeric Greek isn't inherently more difficult than Attic. I don't think the transition from one to the other is that hard by the way. The main differences can be summarized in 4 or 5 pages and are pretty straightforward.

>32 Garp83: is self study not an option for you? Learning Greek Is a tough nut to crack, no doubt, but doable nevertheless. The most important thing is to keep yourself motivated. A book like Pharr's is helpful in that respect as it has you reading Homer after only 13 lessons or so.

Just don't have the time or the discipline to force myself to make the time out of the classroom. I can learn quite well on my own with things like history and literature -- in fact much of my education has been achieved that way -- but language and math require classroom for me to chart success.

When I was in high school, a long time ago, we did Attic for two years, the first using an old textbook, and the second reading parts of Xenophon's Anabasis. The third year we switched to the Iliad. It didn't strike me as unduly hard to make the transition. I found and still find the Homeric Greek easier, and more intuitive.

I was in a public high school. At that time the only other schools offering Greek were private prep schools, and Jesuit high schools. The Jesuits taught only Homeric Greek. They read the Odyssey.

BTW a 12-year old would have to have a solid grounding in the fundamentals of grammar to make head or tail of Pharr.