Classics and the Western Canon discussion

Here is our next batch of nominees from your moderators and the Random Book Generator. Please tell us why we should read your favorite nominee on the list.

1. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
2. Meditations by Marcus Aurelius
3. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Benjamin Franklin
4. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
5. Silas Marner by George Eliot
6. The Library of Greek Mythology by Apollodorus
7. My Ántonia by Willa Cather
8. A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe

Upcoming Schedule

Gulliver
Aug 26 - Sep 1	Part 3, Chapters 6 - 11	Next read member discussion
Sep 2 - Sep 8	Part 4, Chapters 1 - 6	Next read Poll
Sep 9 - Sep 15	Part 4, Chapters 7 - 12 + book, run-off if needed
Sep 16 - Sep 22	Interim Read 1	Acquire book week 1
Sep 23 - Sep 29	Interim Read 2	Acquire book week 2
Sep 30 - Oct 6	START of the book chosen here

I’d like to propose Dostoevsky’s Demons as an additional option since it’s received a decent amount of support in the last couple polls.

Other than that, while all are fine works, Meditations is on my soon to study list and seems like it might invite interesting discussion. I read parts of The Library while studying the Greeks recently. I think it would be fun to discuss the Greek myths and how they relate to the present.

I am voting for A Journal of the Plague Year. I am pinning that decision on it being relevant to our current situation offering a certain level of calming familiarity making these times a little less "unprecedented"* and possibly a little less scary.

If that doesn't win then I am pulling for the inspiring and therapeutic Meditations. In addtion, I discovered not one, but two new translations of Meditations I have been wanting to read since the last time it was nominated.

*Note: While every epidemic is different, the term, unprecedented, has become of pet peeve** of mine lately through extreme overuse in communications from upper management and the fact it is neither the only epidemic, nor is it likely to become the worst epidemic that we humans have been through. List of Epidemics

**Note: I had to express the pet peeve above to others. The only other person I voice this complaint to is sick of hearing it. Thanks, you're a lifesaver.

I'm also pushing for Demons. Then Silas Marner. Next Autobiography of Ben Franklin, and Library of Greek Mythology. I very much want to read Cather, but I remember someone saying it might not offer up as much discussion.

During the 2020 plague year I've already reread And the Band Played On and read Pale Rider about the 1918 flu. I will skip another plague book for the year.

Me too for Demons
Then Greek Mythology
Then Ben Frankline

I have read Salias Marner and Meditations.

Meditations will be a great discussion, we must read it.

I have to say that nothing really jumps out at me here--of the four I haven't read, I'm not sure what sort of discussion they would generate. If Demons were allowed, I'd be just as happy to read that as any of the others. I've read Brave New World a couple times, but that really looks like the one that would generate the most discussion, followed by Journal of the Plague Year, which I just read a few months ago.

I'll probably vote for Silas Marner--it's been on my TBR for a long while.

My vote would be for Demons.

The Greeks are back! I haven’t seen any Greek titles in the voting pool for so long, I thought they have been exiled from this group!

I’m voting for Apollodorus!
psst... anybody willing to take bribes?

I read a Journal of the Plague Year just after I got sent home in March. I'd like Meditations or The Library of Greek Mythology

Hi! I’m Frances. I’m new to the group. Many of these are on my TBR list:The Awakening, Brave New World, A Journal of the Plague Year and The Library of Greek Mythology (Lia, we can discuss what my favorite type of chocolate is later 🤫).

All these look like fantastic reads! I won't be voting for The Awakening, Brave New World or Silas Marner because I've read these recently. I think I'll lend my vote to either Meditations, The Library of Greek Mythology or A Journal of the Plague Year as these interest me the most at the moment.

I agree with Bryan on this list, with the exception for Silas Marner, I have read it a few months ago. Waiting for group choice, I hope it will be a good discussion.

I read _Meditations_ when I was a freshman, though not for school. It deeply impressed me. I'm inclined to vote for it in the hopes of learning whether it still seems the same to me.

Don't know if I can quite agree with this description, since my images have grown faint, but I do think it is time to read Willa Cather again (would be a first time for this site/group). Below is from this extensive, if not always easy to navigate, site featuring Cather: https://www.willacather.org/

Everyman's Library
Hardback

"Of Antonia, the passionate and majestic central character in Willa Cather's greatest novel, the narrator, Jim Burden, says that she left 'images in the mind that did not fade-that grew stronger with time.' The same is true of the book in which Cather enshrines her heroine. On one level, My Antonia is a straightforward narrative, written in limpid prose of uncanny descriptive accuracy, about the struggles endured by a family of immigrant pioneers and the small community that surrounds them on the unsettled Nebraska plains. On another, it is a novel that represents a perfect marriage of form and feeling. In its magnificent tableaux of human beings caught in the toils of an abundant and overpowering natural world, and in the quiet, understated sympathy it displays for life of every sort, My Antonia is a novel that effortlessly encompasses history and wilderness and the destiny of the individual-even as it lovingly and unsentimentally portrays a woman whose robust spirit and enduring warmth make her emblematic of what Cather most admired in the American people."

I vote for Greek Mythology. It's a subject that could be much more interesting to delve into with a group of readers than on my own.

Poll has been posted here:
https://www.goodreads.com/poll/show/2...

Voting starts on: Sep 02, 2020 12:00AM PDT
Voting ends on Sep 09, 2020 11:59 PM PDT

Good luck.

https://archive.org/details/apollodor...

There are free versions of Apollodorus, though they aren't super easy to find. I've had trouble getting my tablet to access this, but I could get it on my PC. With a little more work, I think I could probably do it. There are probably other sources as well.

Of course, that is the James Frazier translation. That may not work for some readers.

I looked around a bit and quickly decided on this edition, if it wins.

The Library of Greek Mythology (Oxford World's Classics)
by Apollodorus (Author), Robin Hard (Translator)
Formats available: Kindle (7.99 USD), Paperback.(12.22 USD or less from other sellers from 4 - 6 USD)
https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B006VQ9XS...

For those interested, the original Loeb Library translation is also available for Apollodorus and most other ancient Greco-Roman texts with footnotes at Theoi.com.

Apollodorus: https://www.theoi.com/Text/Apollodoru...
Library: https://www.theoi.com/Library.html

Robin Hard also translated one of those two editions of Meditations: by Marcus Aurelius that I have and would not mind reading next. The other is translated by Gregory Hayes.

Robin Hard is also the author of The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology and The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology.

OTOH, the footnotes that come with the Loeb editions are really really great (and even better for those learning Greek, since the original text and the translations are on facing pages.)

I enjoyed Ian’s extensive reviews on Amazon, BTW :D

(psst, Cphe, did you get it in print or in kindle? And, have you had a chance to look at the contents?)

There’s also a free audio excerpt on LibriVox called Sky Weds Earth: Excerpt from the Encyclopedia of Greek Mythology (in Short Nonfiction Collection, Vol. 066 ) | PSEUDO-APOLLODORUS

This link will download the audio clip ↓
http://www.archive.org/download//nonf...

Bryan said: "Of course, that is the James Frazier translation. That may not work for some readers." It's James Frazer (author of The Golden Bough).

I'm not accusing anyone of ignorance.

Donnally wrote: "It's James Frazer."

Good catch

ETA: I was probably thinking of the boxer--Joe Frazier

Cphe wrote: "Can someone please enlighten me as to what a freshman is exactly. Hear the term from Americans a lot but it’s not an Aussie term related to school over here."

The term refers to a first year student in either a U.S. high school (the last 4 years of education before college) or a first year student in college.

Sam is correct and this may help you conceptualize it a little better.

		HS		College
freshman	Grade 9		1st year
sophomore	Grade 10	2nd year
junior		Grade 11	3rd year
senior		Grade 12	4th yearr

The typical American high school (HS) senior is 18 years old when they graduate and begin college, or begin overstaying in their parents basement.

Cphe wrote: "Thanks David we call them by the year over here and most are around 18 when they sit their HSC before further education."

There is a also an informal equivalent, "frosh," which I happen to dislike.

"Freshman" also appears in American English in transferred contexts, such as, in politics, "Freshman [=first term] Representative." These are usually transparent to those familiar with the original usage, and probably quite opaque to those who aren't.

For comparative rundown, including other languages, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freshman

My deeply buried Amazon review of the Robin Hard translation of Apollodorus can be found at https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

For those interested in the very old Frazer translation of Apollodorus (or, more exactly, "the Pseudo-Apollodorus"), with the Greek text and the notes, but without the appendices, the best choice is probably the Kindle edition from Delphi Classics. It is inexpensive, and, so far as I have noticed, pretty reliable.

(It seems to have taken its text directly from the on-line Perseus Project, http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/, which is quite reliable; but there may be errors in the transfer of the translation which I haven't noticed, or are beyond my competence in Greek.)

I reviewed it at https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

There are also other Kindle editions, which I think are the English text only -- and I'm not sure if they include the notes.

A fairly recent (1976) translation with excellent notes, including references to later literary versions of the myths, is Michael Simpson's "Gods and Heroes of the Greeks: The "Library" of Apollodorus." This may be out of print, but is often available through dealers. Again, I've reviewed it at
https://www.amazon.com/review/RETRI9K...

I have not (yet) reviewed "Apollodorus' Library and Hyginus' Myths: Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology, translated by by Stephen M. Trzaskoma and R. Scott Smith, which is also available in a Kindle Edition. This is more expensive than Frazer, but also much more up-to-date, and, I think, much more readable. I will probably (finally) review it if we go with Apollodorus -- and maybe anyway. It has excellent background material on mythography, i.e., the (ancient) collection of myths and legends, a genre of which Apollodorus (or whoever wrote it) is the prime, but not the only, example.

The second work in the same volume is a very frustrating, short collection of summaries of Greek myths, which itself was probably abridged during its transmission. It contains the only extant versions of some popular myths, but the contents often seem to have been garbled.

The Kindle edition is only slightly more expensive than the Hard translation.

There was also a 1975 translation by Keith Aldrich, but this is long out of print.

Thanks @Cphe, I was a little worried that the nature of this book might not meet expectations, it’s not a novel with a plot, and I didn’t know if bookclubbers might be put off by that.

I see that you’ve had a chance to look at the book and still think it’s worthy of your vote, which is reassuring!

Thanks @Ian, that’s very informative.

I have the LOEB, because of the brevity and the frequency of proper names, it’s relatively easy (compared to other LOEB classics) to figure out what the rest of the words in the sentence mean thanks to the translation in the facing page. Alas, I find it unfortunate that Apollodorus is not included in the Attikos app (which translates each individual Greek word into English if you tap on it, you can also embarrass Siri by making her speak-screen!).

I see that Michael Simpson's is available to me as ILL, but I’m not sure if I want to make people’s life difficult under COVID, I wonder if it’s still worth requesting it if I already have the LOEB and plan to get the Robin Hard kindle if Apollodorus wins the contest.

Lia wrote: "Thanks @Ian, that’s very informative.

I have the LOEB, because of the brevity and the frequency of proper names, it’s relatively easy (compared to other LOEB classics) to figure out what the rest ..."

I'm inclined to consider the Robin Hard translation the safest bet for the general reader. I liked the Trzaskoma and Smith translation, but it seems to me to most likely to work better as a textbook in a course on mythology -- which is what it was designed to be -- than it would for casual reading.

Of course, the "Library" is pretty much a handbook, meant as a general introduction/reference, and its overall literary qualities, if any, have be judged in that context.

In places, however, I find that the quality of the retelling, in any translation, is better than usual. This might represent differences in the ancient sources of the collection, according to whether passages were drawn from primary literature or from secondary summaries already in circulation.

I would consider the experience of reading Apollodorus strictly for the narrative (rather than as, say, a reflection of ancient Greek culture in general) to be closer to that of a collection of loosely-linked short stories, with recurring characters, than it would be to a novel, since there is no overall plot to be discerned, and inconsistencies and variants are less problematic.

Lia wrote: "I see that Michael Simpson's is available to me as ILL, but I’m not sure if I want to make people’s life difficult under COVID, I wonder if it’s still worth requesting it if I already have the LOEB and plan to get the Robin Hard kindle if Apollodorus wins the contest. ..."

Simpson is interesting, but there are complaints about the details of his translation (although I have never seen these detailed), and I wouldn't make a special effort to get it if you are using both Frazer and Hard -- the modern literature he mentions is hardly essential knowledge for understanding the work at hand.

I will also mention, in case you are interested, another volume, which includes parts of Apollodorus (and Hyginus), with much, much more: "Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation," 2nd Edition, by Stephen M. Trzaskoma (Editor), R. Scott Smith (Editor), Stephen Brunet (Editor), with Additional Translations by Other Scholars and an Appendix on Linear B Sources by Thomas G. Palaima.

It is designed as a textbook, and the Kindle edition is an e-Textbook which shows original pagination (which makes assigned readerings easier to find). It includes material that is otherwise unavailable in English

The Second Edition (Goodreads only lists the first edition) includes translations of comparable Babylonian, Hittite, and Biblical material, which is sometimes helpful. The Linear B (Mycenaean Greek) material is interesting, and up-to-date (it turns out that some of my knowledge of what they contain was obsolete....).

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06...

I've been reading this in bits and pieces since February -- other things keep taking priority, and the individual chapters are pretty much stand-alone, rather than cumulative.

Ian, you caught me just in time. When you called Trzaskoma’s a textbook in #37, I jumped to hunt down a cheap first edition, because there are always cheap older edition textbooks languishing somewhere, and usually the only thing they change is the price on the cover.

Not this time, apparently! I’ll keep an eye out for the second ed.

Lia wrote: "Ian, you caught me just in time. When you called Trzaskoma’s a textbook in #37, I jumped to hunt down a cheap first edition, because there are always cheap older edition textbooks languishing somew..."

CLARIFICATION

The book in #37 is "Apollodorus’ Library and Hyginus’ Fabulae Two Handbooks of Greek Mythology." Hackett Publishing, 2007. It has only the one edition, so far.

It incorporates, with revisions, material from the first edition of the book I described in #38, which is the "ANTHOLOGY OF CLASSICAL MYTH," also from Hackett, in which there are selections from Apollodorus and Hyginus.

The second edition of the "Anthology..." is considerably expanded and improved, especially with the addition of comparable non-classical material. It is also the more obviously "text-bookish," with additional advice to teachers based on how the first edition had been used in classroom settings.

I prefer the Kindle editions of both, not only because they are cheaper, but because I am running out of shelf-space....

I searched by the author’s name and came across a cheap first edition of Anthology, I didn’t even notice they are two different books!

Ian wrote: “ I prefer the Kindle ... because I am running out of shelf-space ....”

I suppose that’s why old textbooks are cheaper than toilet paper ...

I was thinking about getting the 1st Edition of the Anthology, because it was really really cheap — cheaper than a stack of paper that size would have costed.

But, after having browsed through some of the sample pages, I think this is a book I really want to be able to keyword search. And ... the kindle of the second edition is still really cheap ... I grabbed the ebook, though I’m still thinking about grabbing the print first edition just so I can cut out the charts and maps and put them on my wall... (sorry book-fetishists!)

Lia wrote: "...I grabbed the ebook, though I’m still thinking about grabbing the print first edition just so I can cut out the charts and maps and put them on my wall... (sorry book-fetishists!) ..."

Why not! Better than turning brown in some Good Will shelf or being among the discards of a rummage or estate sale! (Although maybe not "print first edition" if it is one of those valuable ones....)

I'm hoping The Genealogy of Greek Mythology: An Illustrated Family Tree of Greek Myth from the First Gods to the Founders of Rome by Vanessa James (2003) will be useful once again -- one of those delightful fold-out books that may languish for years and then get pulled again, as it did to trace Eos and Tithonus for Gulliver's Travels. It has also been lent to a family with a child fascinated by mythology and its characters, and probably was last most used by me when we read Ovid on this board (2013). Unfold it to concentrate on the gods, flip it over to trace the humans of myth. (I probably got my copy through an art museum, most likely MMA.) Anyway, I mention it if you like things to sprawl out across walls.

All you guys voting for The Library of Greek Mythology--have you scanned its reviews? A lot of people find it tedious and dry. Apparently it's a summary of the plots, not a dramatic retelling.

Lily wrote: "probably was last most used by me when we read Ovid on this board (2013). Unfold it to concentrate on the gods, flip it over to trace the humans of myth. (I probably got my copy through an art museum, most likely MMA.) Anyway, I mention it if you like things to sprawl out across walls....."

I’m pretty sad I missed it, I suspect Ovid is something that is much better with a lively discussion.

I generally prefer ebooks, and I’m not even crazy about ASoIAF (GRRM), but I was pretty jealous when they came up with ASOIAF popup books around Christmas. There’s something wonderful about print books that aren’t necessarily designed to be read linearly, but just with complex and attractive and colorful items to touch and gawk at and admire for hours. And I was just throwing shade at book “fetishists”, ha!

Roger wrote: "All you guys voting for The Library of Greek Mythology--have you scanned its reviews? A lot of people find it tedious and dry. Apparently it's a summary of the plots, not a dramatic retelling."

Yep. That’s why I checked with Cphe to see what she thinks of its appropriateness for a bookclub discussion. It’s like what Ian said: the "Library" is pretty much a handbook, meant as a general introduction/reference, and its overall literary qualities, if any, have be judged in that context.

I’ve read some of it, and I personally think it could be really great for group discussions for people whom have already read the Iliad and the Odyssey and maybe Prometheus Bound with us recently ... these “books” tend to cover very brief slice of events in a much bigger picture, discussing the library is a good chance to piece them together and see how one event is related to or have consequences for another tale in the cycle. But if people expect an artistic epic or well crafted story, they’ll no doubt find it very dry.

The Library appears to me to be another author's take on the myths and is similar to Metamorphoses by Ovid, which this group has read, and successfully so, I thought.

Wikipedia says:This work attempts to reconcile the contradictory tales of the poets and provides a grand summary of traditional Greek mythology and heroic legends.[7]:1 Apollodorus of Athens lived from c. 180 BC to c. 125 BC and wrote on many of these topics. His writings may have formed the basis for the collection; however the "Library" discusses events that occurred long after his death, hence the name Pseudo-Apollodorus.

I will be consulting my goto resource for Greek and Roman Mythology:

Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (p. 128). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Roger is correct, attempting to read these books cover to cover on your own for fun does get a little tedious, like reading the encyclopedia; its not called The Library without a reason. There is no overall plot, and the main characters change every few pages. However, they are great to read though and discuss the individual stories with the most appeal.

David wrote: "The Library appears to me to be another author's take on the myths and is similar to Metamorphoses by Ovid, which this group has read, and successfully so, I thought."

I really want Apollodorus to win, but I think even Ovid’s Metamorphosis had an artistic design that unifies or gives structure to the diverse contents. It’s also written with all the structural markers of an Epic, which is itself a bit subversive and shocking. He even sidelines the muses, and essentially pegs his own “immortality” through “his metamorphosis” — ostensibly he’s telling about the myths, but he’s also really talking about himself. (I also think the theme is consistent with a lot of self-dramatization in his poems before and after Metamorphosis.)

That kind of playful unity and poetic meters are not there in Apollodorus as far as I can tell. He isn’t trying to make you “see” a thesis, theme, he’s just ... documenting stuff. (Which is still interesting to read! Just not as ... entertaining as Ovid’s, I think.)

David wrote: "I will be consulting my goto resource for Greek and Roman Mythology:

Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition) (p. 128). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition...."

Back in the 1960s, I felt much the same way about Graves, but I've learned from experience.

I've posted at some length about his "Greek Myths" on at least one other Goodreads discussion, concerning background sources for the Iliad and/or the Odyssey (I've taken part in more than one discussion on both).

Briefly, Graves is not nearly as reliable as he seems. The summaries of the stories are usually pretty reliable, but there are odd lapses, such as colorful details that don't actually occur in the ancient texts he was supposedly relying on.

Although there is a general impression that while Graves was working on the book he living in the England, with ready access to major libraries, he was mainly in Majorca, which is not a center for classical scholarship, so there were not lots of obscure sources at hand.

In fact, there is strong suspicion that for much of the work Graves relied on hired assistants, who themselves saved time and effort by relying on nineteenth- and early twentieth-century German handbooks of mythology. The shortcomings of some assistants, and of some of the reference books, as well as sloppy proofreading, may account for the fact that some of the source references he gives, paragraph by paragraph, are misleading, or just wrong (so that the passage can't be located).

It may also account for the occasional presence of proposed Sanskrit cognates, typical of the nineteenth-century, which are not recognized by modern comparative philologists. (Graves apparently considers all other people who have spent their lives studying the subject to be incurably stuffy, and oblivious to "real" poetry, so that their conclusions don't count.)

It is also necessary to separate Graves' views of the relative ages of specific myths from any scholarly consensus: he had a marked tendency to account as "early" or "original" a myth or variant which fit his theories of Greek prehistory, no matter how late its attestation, or the likelihood that in some cases it was probably borrowed from a non-Greek source. (He may have been right from time to time.)

Which brings us to the interpretations that Graves offers. They are based on his highly personal mythological "system," presented in great detail in "The White Goddess" a few years before. For the many problems with this (well-written and exciting) book, see my Amazon review, at https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-re...

I agree with the above posts that the actual reading of the Library may be boring for some; however, it does tell the stories of Theogony (the birth of the gods and ascendancy of Zeus’ Olympians), then each of the major mythical houses of Greece that formed the city-states, the members of which provide the characters in Greco-Roman tragedy and mythology.

I think it will be interesting to see how they all came together to create the many intersecting foundational myths of Ancient Greek society and what those myths were meant to mean. I know many in this group don’t mind “heavy lifting” reading. While Apollodorus isn’t light reading, it does tell the generational stories, especially as organized in the Oxford World Classics edition, leading from their creation myth to the first “legend” stories of the Trojan War, their first history/myth blend. I would call it more medium-lifting.

Aiden wrote: "I agree with the above posts that the actual reading of the Library may be boring for some; however, it does tell the stories of Theogony (the birth of the gods and ascendancy of Zeus’ Olympians), ..."

Although Robin Hard goes to some lengths to clarify for the reader the organizational principles behind the "Library" of (pseudo-)Apollodorus, that is genealogical order, sub-divided by regions, this is simply what is there in the Greek text, and it can be followed in any translation. Some of the other translators don't seem to think this is very important, but unless it is pointed out, the reader will be nearly finished before the guiding principle becomes evident.

In my experience (having read several translations, some more than once), treating the book as a kind of novel, or a continuous narrative of any kind, is likely to be self-defeating, given that it may jump back in time whenever it changes locale, offers variant information on some stories, and repeats a few stories in different contexts.

However, once I realized this, I found that I could treat it as a collection of short stories with repeating themes and characters, not all from the same author, I found it much easier to follow.

Some sections are fairly long, and if we read it we might want to separate those out when we reach them. The most obvious example is the account of Herakles (Roman Hercules), which is the most comprehensive account to survive from antiquity.

Without "Apollodorus," we would have to rely mainly on the unsystematic fragments offered by Homer, the Hesiodic poems, the Odes of Pindar, some tragedies and comedies, and some Hellenistic writers, none of them comprehensive or offering a chronological order. (There was a Herakles epic, about which almost nothing is known: it seems to have tried to cover the whole story, since Aristotle objects to that part fairly specifically.)

(There are interesting additional details about Herakles in another fairly extended account of the hero, another "Library," this one by the Roman-era historian Diodorus Siculus [writing about 60 to 30 BCE], but, as if to prove he is a critical historian, Diodorus repeatedly rationalizes away the mythical elements in the stories.)

The introductions to the translations report another problem, which the persistent reader will discover anyway: the extant manuscript tradition must have gone back to a damaged copy, and it always breaks off in the midst of the story of Theseus.

Fortunately, two abridgments survive, which cover the remaining material, although having been cut down from what was already a summary makes them less desirable as a resource. Frazer, in the Loeb Classical Library version, edited together the information from the two versions, and his composite is, I think, used in all subsequent English translations, (rather than providing both, and forcing the the reader pick out the instances in which they differ, each offering more or less information than the other).

Ian wrote: "Back in the 1960s, I felt much the same way about Graves, but I've learned from experience."

Thanks Ian (sincerely). I now know what it must have been like for Gulliver spending time with the governor of Glubbdubdrib and becoming "enlightened" on the imperfections of one's heroes. I will still cite from Graves, but with a little less confidence. So much for one stop shopping Greek mythology. I will have to keep looking and now I have an excuse to buy more books. :)

David wrote: "Ian wrote: "Back in the 1960s, I felt much the same way about Graves, but I've learned from experience."

Thanks Ian (sincerely). I now know what it must have been like for Gulliver spending time w..."

I had a long, slow, letdown, when I tried to follow up on some of his references through the huge UCLA library system, and found that at times they just didn't say what he claimed they had. It was considerably later that I came across the biographical detail that he was working on it while living on Majorca, and had hired assistants.

(Which is not in itself necessarily a problem: professors often use their graduate students to verify quotations, and find exact references. But they aren't supposed to use them as uncredited co-authors.)

You are *usually* fairly safe in citing Graves, but it is impossible for a novice (or sometimes expert) reader to spot where he has messed up.

And his arrangement of material can be confusing: I've seen a specialist in another set of mythologies make some elementary mistakes, based on how Graves chose to conjoin separate myths in one entry, or a sequence of entries, without noticing that there has been a change of subject. Also without looking at the notes to see how he is quoting sources centuries apart as if they both told "the same story."

(Of course, recognizing that takes some prior knowledge of ancient Greek chronology, but I would have thought that someone with an advanced degree in one of the Humanities would have acquired at least a skeletal knowledge of it.*)

A good substitute might be Jenny March's "Cassell's Dictionary of Classical Mythology." Unfortunately, it is apparently out of print (so far as Amazon is aware), but the second edition (in paperback) from 2001 currently is available from dealers at reasonable prices. (The older hardcover is insanely expensive.)
https://www.amazon.com/Cassells-Dicti...

As I think has been mentioned above, Robin Hard "edited" (which may [NB apparently does] mean re-wrote much of) H.J. Rose's old "Handbook of Classical Mythology." (Rose was competent, but I found him capable of making even Hercules boring, and he was openly contemptuous of any systematic effort to "explain" the myths, although he offered some rather crude rationalizations himself....)

The new edition is "The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology," and, unlike March, it is now in Kindle, at a pretty reasonable price for almost 800 pages.
https://www.amazon.com/Routledge-Hand...

*But maybe not.

Some colleges and universities offer classes on Greek Mythology (or Classical Mythology, throwing in the Romans), but some don't.

When I was attending UCLA, English majors (and some other literature types) were encouraged (but not required) to take a course in it. But the Classics department only offered it on the undergraduate level every few years, and when they did the lecture was packed with people, including graduate students, who felt a need for it. (In my experience with it, it had to be moved to a larger lecture hall, when the first session had people standing in the aisles, and just outside the doors.)

And this was on a campus that actually housed a "Center for Folklore and Mythology," and occasionally offered courses in Baltic and Slavic folklore and mythology, and Norse and Celtic myths (all in translation, of course).

I’ve actually read some of Robin Hard’s (older edition) Routledge handbook, he (peculiarly, I thought) clarified he originally meant to “revise” H.J. Rose’s, but ended up essentially rewriting it. He says it’s “essentially a new book” but acknowledged it’s indebted to and followed the general organization /planning of Rose’s.

I haven’t read Rose’s so I have no idea how they compare.

Ian wrote: "Cphe wrote: "Thanks David we call them by the year over here and most are around 18 when they sit their HSC before further education."

There is a also an informal equivalent, "frosh," which I happ..."

The term "first-year" is now preferred at many US colleges & universities. Ungendered. ;)