aristoteliancomplacency:nunc-iam-illa-non-vult:anagignosko:cinque-spotted:wwnorton:FIRST LINES FROM

aristoteliancomplacency:nunc-iam-illa-non-vult:anagignosko:cinque-spotted:wwnorton:FIRST LINES FROM NEW BOOKS OUT TODAY: SEPTEMBER 10, 2012“The first to die was ProtesilausA focused man who hurried to darknessWith forty black ships leaving the land behindMen sailed with him from those flower-lit cliffsWhere the grass gives growth to everythingPyrasus Iton Pteleus AntronHe died in mid-air jumping to be first ashoreThere was his house half-builtHis wife rushed out clawing her facePodarcus his altogether less impressive brotherTook over command but that was long agoHe’s been in the black earth now for thousands of year.”Memorial: A Version of Homer’s Iliad by Alice OswaldA “version” of the Iliad in which Oswald translates every death—and only the deaths—so that the poem becomes what the poem is. Oswald has stated she wants to translates the poem’s enargeia, what she calls “the bright unbearable reality” of the Iliad. This is not the poem that starts “μῆνιν ἄειδε, θεὰ”. Menis is not the key word to this poem; the rage of Achilles passes by like a ghost. The gods and goddesses keep to the margins. What remains, then, is the song, and the list of the dead.I WANT THIS LIKE BURNINGI have wanted this book for at least a year since I heard about it, oh godThis is SO GOOD. She came to my school and did a ~45 minute reading from it (after reciting a prayer to the Muse!). First of all, she’s a captivating reader. Hearing this was the only time I’ve ever felt like I was experiencing oral epic as it’s supposed to be experienced—didn’t think that could happen in English. Anyway, it’s absolutely amazing. Read it, and if you get to hear her do a reading, do it.Memorial is not “every death - and only the deaths” of the Iliad". It’s the deaths AND all the extended similes, which form a really powerful counterpoint to each other when everything else is stripped away.I’ve also heard Oswald perform Memorial, but she wasn’t reading it (in the literal sense). Oswald spent hours of weeks and months learning the thing by heart using the same sort of techniques as a rhapsode would have. And then she performed it like that.She’s pretty rad, guys. -- source link

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