#greekliterature — Public Fediverse posts on home.social

I spent a a good part of my formal (and informal) edumacation immersed in my studies of antiquity from both a history and a literary viewpoint. (Ἡ ἐμὴ ἀρχαία Ἑλληνικὴ γλῶττα παντάπασιν κακίστη ἐστίν.)

Sophocles' "Antigone" is one of my all-time favorite tragedies.

This Ian Crowe illustrated cover to what I understand is a recent translation is quite striking and horrific.

I wonder where the hell my plays in translation are? Hmmm. Must find them all.

#antigone #greekliterature #sophocles

Jonathan Emmesedi @[email protected] · 2025-07-09 · 23:17 UTC

Armand D'Angour's recent posting of a lyric of Anacreon (https://bsky.brid.gy/r/https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:c2i5hfc7ezyxfuhjt2a27f4y/post/3ltfcqpn2zc27) reminded me of reading a sepulchral epigram of Callimachus when I was a schoolboy:

Δωδεκέτη τὸν παῖδα πατὴρ ἀπέθηκε Φίλιππος ἐνθάδε, τὴν πολλὴν ἐλπίδα, Νικοτέλην

Here's a computer generated phonemic transcription:

dɔː.de.ké.tɛː tòn pâi̯.da pa.tɛ̀ːr a.pé.tʰɛː.ke pʰí.lip.pos en.tʰá.de, tɛ̀ːn pol.lɛ̀ːn el.pí.da ni.ko.té.lɛːn

Translation:

Here Philippos, a father, laid his twelve year old son, his great hope, Nikoteles.

As a teenager, I was struck by the elegant simplicity and pathos of these lines.

Decades later, as a parent, the pathos of the lines strikes me so much more deeply. I also feel a bond both with Philippos, separated as we are by oceans and millennia, and with my younger self, sensitive in adolescent way to the pathos, yet then unacquainted with the paternal emotions stirring that father's grief and disappointment. A triad of sensibility....

"Um, actually," I hear some reply guy ask, "are you sure that Philippos and his son even existed and that they're not just fictions created by Callimachus?"

I'm not sure, because I don't know enough about this literature, but I'm also not sure if anybody, even amongst classical scholars, knows for sure whether these two people had any material existence. I am sure, however, that their material existence or otherwise doesn't matter to me, because as characters, fictional or not, they are real to me; my triad of sensibility endures. But now we're wading into philosophy...

If you can't read the Greek, try your best with the phonemic transcription, so that you can hear the alliteration and repetition of the sound /p/ and that heartbreaking conclusion with the sound of the boy's name.

#Literature #Callimachus #GreekLiterature #Epigrams #Greek #Parenting #Fathers

#literature #callimachus #greekliterature #epigrams #greek #parenting

Christina Dongowski @[email protected] · 2024-06-05 · 15:04 UTC

Emily Wilson, a legend in her own right, reviews the latest book of Anne Carson, who is by now, basically a mythical figure (at least for some of us).
#literarycriticism #LiteraryTranslation #Literature #bookstodon #poetry #greekliterature #classics

https://www.thenation.com/article/culture/anne-carson-wrong-norma/

#literarycriticism #literarytranslation #literature #bookstodon #poetry #greekliterature

hugo. @[email protected] · 2023-10-11 · 19:12 UTC

Although it still feels a lot like summer over here, this week's blog post features an autumn-themed poem, namely 'Fall Song' by the Greek poet Napoleon Lapathiotis (in Alex Moskios' translation). 🍂

If you've never heard of this amazing neo-romantic poet, the post also includes some background on him, as well as a simple vocabulary exercise intended for English language learners.

https://grammaticus.blog/2023/10/11/fall-song-by-lapathiotis/

#poem #poetry #greece #greekliterature #learningenglish #englishteacher