Monday, June 6, 2011

Day 1?

So, our reading list:
Epic of Gilgamesh
Various Tragedies (Agamemnon, 3 Theban Plays, Prometheus et alii)
Medea
Aeneid
Odyssey
Ovid's Metamorphoses.


As you might have noticed, the only non Graeco-Roman piece we're reading is Gilgamesh. That bums me out a bit, as Graeco-Roman is one of my least favorite areas(probably due to oversaturation or simply the fact that it's all courses ever seem to want to cover). Whatever, though. Should still be fun.

 The first thing we're reading is Gilgamesh, and we're only really briefly hitting on it =(  If you know me at all, you know I love Babylonian myth (and by extension, Mesopotamian).  A lot of the stories we've found from the period are very telling of early human politics (The Enuma Elish is the greatest retcon of all time, made to make an excuse to give Marduk supremacy over all other gods, as he was the patron of Babylon, which had recently become the power player of the crescent.  As a way to write off the reason it became the capitol to the rest of Mesopotamia, Babylonian poets just....changed the pantheon).  You think that comic book writers today change major plot points?  They've got nothing on the oldies.

But that's neither here nor there.  The same kind of thing can be said for Graeco-Roman, so meh.  I just don't like it as much.

Anyway, I'm going to start reading Gil tonight, so if any of you have spare time, join in on the fun.