Reading Homer’s Odyssey in the original Greek is a task which Tracy Lee Simmons has essentialized in the metaphor, Climbing Parnassus. (Read a review of it.) It is by no means easy, but it is an enriching, even breathtaking intellectual achievement that is, simply put, like no other.
There is no substitute for reading the Greek; for struggling to wrap one’s mind and one’s frustrations around difficult syntax and vocabulary; for trying to get beyond all that to the actual story, the narrative techniques, the mythic landscapes, the themes of identity and suffering, to entertaining the question, “Who does Odysseus become?”, and so on. But, conversation in every form is helpful to this process. In fact, I would say that dialogue is crucial in the task of exploring the gaps between ourselves and any text (especially one of such antiquity), between our modern assumptions and social realities within the text which seem ever to recede from our grasp.
Blogging is a tool by means of which we can extend some of the natural barriers of our seminars. Blogging is not a replacement for face-to-face dialogue; it is rather a supplement to it, an enhancer of it. My vision is that we can meet together, read the text very closely and carefully, engage in fruitful discussion about the text, and then go off to discover other connections in the Blogosphere and in other electronic resources which may enrich what we bring back again to the table.
I invite you to experiment; to draw our attention to resources we may not be aware of; to read what other people think about reading, about reading Greek, about reading Homer, about reading Homer’s Odyssey, or whatever else may pertain to the subject matter of this course. If you see connections that aren’t apparent, make them apparent to us. Above all, share ideas.
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