To be fair, the only people left on Xitter are idiots
The world is awash in morons and they aren’t localized to that venue, although by way of it’s very structure, it’s a venue that strongly attracts people incapable of holding two thoughts at the same time.
As G Carlin would have said, think how stupid the average person is and realize 50% are stupider than that. This is the world we live in - where the trivial thoughts emerging from society’s dreck take have equal stage and prominence to expertise and wisdom
Liam’s a tool. UK schools absolutely do teach the Odyssey, and have done so at least as far back as my youth.
most of the time someone says something wasnt taught in school its because that person straight up didnt pay attention in class
I suspect there is significant overlap between the kids who were complaining in math class that what they were learning was useless along with the adults who claim math class didn’t teach them “how to do taxes”. (As if you do anything other than fill out a form, anyways.)
Take the numbers from the numbered boxes, and transpose them into the numbered boxes on the tax form. There, you know how to do taxes, what are we gonna do with the other 13 years of your pre-college education?
But what if it puts me in a higher tax bracket and I get less moneyyyyyy?
lol
Let’s see… what other words are in the Financial Incompetants’ Guide to Life… ok here’s something that sounds cooL WRITE OFFS!!!1
Wait we were supposed to pay attention in school now it makes sense
Guess someone didn’t pay attention when the teacher said “Pay attention please” multiple times.
Mine didn’t. We did Buddy, The Crucible, Animal Farm and Shakespeare from what I remember. First I heard of the Odyssey was when I was 19 and DW did a retelling of it on Arthur. When I saw a copy of the story in the shop I worked at, I got it so I could read the actual story.
Were you not aware of it at any point? I don’t necessarily mean as part of the GCSE curriculum. I’ve been aware of the Odyssey and the Iliad from the “Ancient Greeks” part of our primary school curriculum back in year 4. Of course we weren’t analysing texts, but I’d expect any ten year old to be capable of rattling off some major plot points like blinding Polyphemus, or sailors plugging their ears with wax against the sirens and tying Odysseus to the mast.
Nope, I don’t think I’d ever heard of it prior to the Arthur version.
We did the fall of Icarus in Year 3. My little sister learned Theseus and the Minotaur when she was around the same age, which is how I knew about it. Other than that, I don’t remember studying Ancient Greek anything, not even Heracles. Your school was obviously better than mine.
I have to admit that I have not read the Illias or the Odyssey in school, either. We were made read books in school intendet to make children shy away from books, so they won’t touch any of them after school ever again.
Luckily I had read loads of good books by that time, so I knew that only a few are as horrible as the ones they made us read in school.
There are basic versions of these stories with big drawings, mostly made for kids. Basically manga. When i was a kid(in Greece), 35 years ago, i had this
https://www.stratikis.gr/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/iliada-nea.jpg
This is Iliad and it was cooler than Odyssey. Badass dudes with almost divine powers fighting other dudes and entire armies on their own, while Gods are taking sides and fucking things up. Isnt that shonen.
Odyssey’s ending was cool though, even if it was a bit sad.
I first read the classic translation by Schwab when I was ten or eleven.
It does feel a lot like that, doesn’t it? Why else would the Bronte sisters be on the curriculum if not to snuff out any interest in literature?
It could be worse. We read Brecht and Kafka. Several works of them. I’ve never encountered worse waste of paper and ink than those idiots. And the rest was not much better.
Just because it was wasted on you doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, Kafka’s short stories especially (Die Verwandlung, Ein Landarzt etc) are accessible for teenagers and a good gateway drug to get interested in other things. Which is really important for kids that don’t have natural access to literature at home.
Sorry, but I experienced “Die Verwandlung” as written diarrhea of a person with severe mental problems. “Der Prozess” didn’t improve my opition of him, either.
Well, lead a horse to water etc, doesn’t mean we should stop making teens read books in school they wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise. At least now you have both read and formed an opinion on two of the most influential and well regarded works of world literature. (And hopefully they also made you read a lot of other literature in diverse styles and genres.)
The problem is not about “reading books they would not read otherwise”. Sadly, many, if not most, kids don’t get exposed to books anymore except in school. And then they are confronted with unlikable stuff that makes them shy away from ever touching a book again.
I still hope that one day the people who decide what children and teens should read in school get their elitist heads out of their asses and actually try to get kids to read because they enjoy reading a book. Problem is that most people in that area seem to hate books that actually sell in the shops because people like to read them. Like I said about Reich-Ranizky once: he would not notice a good book if it bit him.
So the obvious solution is they should read more books, more varied stuff, not less. Popular, niche, basic, normative, weird, etc.
Of course, your assumption that all teens hate Kafka just because you do is demonstrably false. The assumption that books sell simply because they are actually better and more enjoyable to read is also false, there are a lot of other factors at play.
The kids that enjoy reading will find what is pushed in the book shops anyway, but kids from working class homes will never be exposed to anything else - and therefore have no chance to decide if they like it or not.
Only boring kids would find Wuthering Heights & Jane Eyre boring. Both books would be excellent choices in any curriculum. If you wanna talk boring early 19th century authors, Jane Austen is the name you’re looking for.
I found Wuthering Heights more miserable than boring.
the illias and the odyssey are ancient greek literature, I don’t think they’re that fun to read.
But, you still should be taught about their existence in history.
They were more fun to read than the sh-t the forced down our throats in school. At least Homer knew how to write a story.
The Illiad was like the Bible before the Bible.
Only in that it was widely published but there are others too like the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The Illiad was like the ancient Greek Bible because it was used to provide behavioural guidelines and views common to all Greeks. It was a text central to any Greek’s education. How does a leader act? Read the Illiad. How are battles waged? Read the Illiad. What is the relation between humans and gods? Read the Illiad.
Alexander the Great was known to carry a copy of the Illiad with him at all times, and many philosophers routinely used excerpts from it to illustrate their points. And people would reference it like we reference things from the Bible in the west (Judas, turn water into wine, cross to bear, turn the other cheek etc)
I have not read the Iliad and I’ve only read a few excerpts from the Odyssey. They available as an audio book anywhere that isn’t Audible?
If you are going to delve into that, you could also try the book “Circe” by Madelleine Miller. Loved it.
I don’t reccomend reading/listening to the original, but reading/listening to one of Steven Fry’s books about them.
Iliad was not a religious text(or even a text for many centuries). It was just a story of a dude trying to get back home.
I know you know this and likely just mistyped, but for clarity, the Iliad is about the war itself. The Odyssey is about the dude trying to get back home.
They weren’t religious texts per se, but they were certainly cultural touchstones which contain important lessons about the human condition, death, love, and what’s truly important in life. They would fill a role similar to histories in the Old Testament, probably, like the book of Ruth.
You are right, i wrote a comment about iliad before and mistyped iliad here too. And you are right, it was a cultural touch stone for ancient Greece.
Meanwhile on tiktok British people are apparently mad at Americans for not knowing or caring about Robbie Williams
deleted by creator
What insane revisionist history cope. Robbie tried multiple times to crack the US but was soundly rejected by American audiences every time.
Its not even that great of a mini van. You can get better for cheaper!
The Honda Odyssey fucks hard
Like that Kia, right?
Wait… some people don’t know the Odyssey?
They don’t teach it in my country. I read it on my own.
How are you supposed to enjoy the music of Civilisation 7 without knowing The Odyssey?
On a similar note, you’d think the guy on the right would counter with Beowulf
I learned what it is when I played oddworld: abe’s oddysey (and as a bonus I appreciated the deliberate misspelling to insert the word “odd” into the title, which they did again in the sequel, abe’s exodus)
instead we studied useful things
Have you ever seen any British television quiz game shows? The amount of world geography and history most contestants seem to know is abismal, makes me scratch my head and seriously wonder what many of these people are doing there, in a game show about knowledge. What are they even doing there, in the delusion that they have a shot.
“What is the capital of Denmark?”
“Erm… pass.”This person’s comment is just another drop in the bucket in the sorry state of things.
may nigel farage further dumb down the island people.
I’m in Canada.
I wasn’t taught anything about the Odyssey or Iliad
But I at least know that they’re ancient and Greek.I’m a little mad that Nolan is making the Odyssey. It’s gonna be so pretentious and trendy, and I’d be surprised if Anya Taylor Joy, Timothee chalamet and Jeremy Allan White aren’t in it, to round it out into the most pretentious movie in history
Edit: Nolan can’t film anything but drama. Go watch Batman again and notice how awful the fight scenes are shot and the terrible choreography.
Yeah, another heavy dramatic saga to wade through. I think I’d prefer a Simon Pegg/Nick Frost adaptation. Or maybe a Matt Stone/Trey Parker version. Something still epic, but also hilarious and full of the vibrancy of humans.
You bring up a point, that in these Greek Epics you do find humor. But Christopher Nolan doesn’t know what a sense of humor is
There were a couple of moments in Oppenheimer that had me laughing out loud, but I don’t think that was the intention.
Anya Taylor Joy would do a great circe imo
She’s in everything. She’s this year’s Jennifer Lawrence, and Jeremy Allan White is Bradley Cooper.
Hot Take:
Ulysses > The Odyssey
EDIT: I HATE
TAYLOR SWIFTGIFS!!! https://tenor.com/nB52SeZoYP1.gifI may be misremembering but didn’t the derogative “Chad” start in the UK?
I think you’re thinking of chav
