A Very Short Fact: On this day in 1963, American actor and film producer Brad Pitt was born in Shawn
A Very Short Fact: Onthis day in 1963, American actor and film producer Brad Pitt was born inShawnee, Oklahoma.“And, of course, artistic and literary reinterpretations ofthe Trojan War and the fate of its better-known participants, includingOdysseus, have been produced and reproduced over the centuries, up to andincluding the present. Thus, we have not only the later Greek playwrights andthe Roman poets but also Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, Shakespeare's Troilus and Cressida, Camille Saint-Saëns’sopera Hélène (1904), James Joyce's Ulysses, and the silver screen’s various takes on the epic, with numerousfilms appearing since the early twentieth century featuring the Trojan War,Helen, Achilles, Odysseus, and/or the Trojan Horse.Some of these later works contain parts that may be consideredinaccurate or unfaithful to Homer in details or plot—the 2004 Hollywoodblockbuster movie, for instance, has no gods or goddesses in sight; Brad Pitt anachronisticallyplacing coins on the closed eyes of dead Patroclus five hundred years beforesuch currency is invented in Lydia ca. 700 BCE; and both Agamemnon and Menelauskilled at Troy while Paris/Alexander is not, thereby changing the familiarHomeric/Epic Cycle version—butthis is a long-standing tradition going back to the Greek playwrights whofollowed Homer and who also felt free to change some of the details. Moreimportantly, each has reinterpreted the story in its own way, with changes andnuances frequently reflecting the angst and desires of that particular age,such as medieval Christianity for Chaucer, the Elizabethan worldview forShakespeare, and the Iraq war for Troy director Wolfgang Peterson.” — From ‘TheTrojan War: A Very Short Introduction’ byEric H. Cline[Pg.108-9 — From ‘TheTrojan War: A Very Short Introduction’ byEric H. Cline.]Image via Pixabay -- source link
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