Classical Greek Literature

For hundreds of years part of being an educated person in the West meant having a familiarity with classical Greek literature. Today that knowledge is less prestigious than it once was, but in the service of posh elitism, here is my recommended reading list.

Must Reads

• Homer

Not only does Homer, and the oral community he participated in, form the backbone of all Western literature, but his major texts--The Iliad and The Odyssey--are still transcendent works of art. Read them in their entirety. Best translations: Richard Lattimore, Robert Fagles, or Alexander Pope.

• Plato

Where philosophy started. As with Shakespeare, there's a lot of great work here and everyone can argue about what is mandatory, but I'd go with The Apology of Socrates and Protagoras. The Republic is his masterpiece if you're willing to put in the time. Lot of good translators, but the famous Benjamin Jowett stuff is too outdated, imo.

• Thucydides

I feel guilty recommending the greatest historian of antiquity, as I know full well no one will read his staggering History of the Peloponnesian War. It's long, dense, difficult, boring, dry, and wooden. That said, it's probably the best book about politics and war ever written. The Landmark edition is the definitive one.

You Should Probably Read, or At Least be Familiar With

• The dramatists: Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides

I'm sorry for clumping these guys together but their combined mastery charts the cultural progression of 5th century BCE Athens so well it's hard to separate them. These guys basically invented plays (fuck you Thespis) and their works still hold up wonderfully. (Try and find the Lattimore translations.)

Aeschylus: His Oresteia is famous, and is the only extant trilogy we have. My vote, however, goes with Prometheus Bound, which is more interesting and modern.

Sohpocles: Oedipus Rex is a must read, as is Antigone. Oedipus at Colonus maybe. My favorite is Ajax.

Euripides: The most popular of the three today for his dark and brooding themes (and focus on women). All of his stuff is good, though nothing electrified me. Medea is the goto, but The Bacchae is so insane that I have to recommend it.

Aristophanes: First comedic playwright, and earliest robust comedian in history. Lysistrata is magnificent; also check out The Clouds and The Birds.

Know About Them; Read if you Like

• Herodotus

Histories of the Greco-Persian War is an expansive and extraordinary work of anthropology, but like Thucydides, it's a long slog.

• Hesiod

Not Homer. Works and Days and Theogony are the interesting stuff in question.

• Sappho

The 10th muse: Sappho is famous today as the first woman in history to have a real voice, and for that reason almost all institutions recommend her. The problem is we have so few of her poems that exploring this genius leaves us unsatisfied. Still, try and sample what you can.

• Pre-Socratics

Will satisfy your curiosity for an evening, though not much more.

Get Summaries

• Aesop

His fables are not memorable.

• Xenophon

Not Thucydides.

• Pindar

Not Homer.

• Aristotle

I know this is blasphemy, but hear me out: Aristotle's extant "works" are just notes taken from his students, edited by subsequent academics, handed down to us. The ideas are brilliant and deserve to be studied...by modern paraphrasers. The source texts make me want to pull my finger nails out. "What should I read?" Like Plato, the more the merrier.

Submitted December 06, 2018 at 02:17AM by MegasBasilius https://ift.tt/2zN3Tkz