Nothing makes for a morning of enjoyment like finding out that an elderly historian is liquidating part of his library and that you get first pick. The only thing that could make it better is if he wasn't an Americanist... Oh well. I still got to bring home some treasures including: "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich," "The Closing of the American Mind," and Winston Churchill's "A History of the English Speaking Peoples." All for free, of course. And just in time too; my summer reading is going faster than I planned.
Thoughts after reading the "Iliad" to prepare a Greece unit for my students: -Hector is a jerk until he's dead. He even advocates the exposure of Achaean corpses and then has the cheek to turn around and ask Achilles to spare his. He rudely ignores Polydamas' prophecies and fights outside the gate to save his pride knowing full well what it will cost his family and city. After he's dead, he becomes a martyr for the cause. -Agamemnon has several moments of true leadership to balance out his pettiness. In this way, he's a haunting foil to Achilles: the two men are more alike than they want to acknowledge. -We see that Achilles is the better man at the funeral games of Patroclos. His lordliness, tact, and generosity there give us a window into Achilles before his fight with Agamemnon and the death of Patroclos consumed him. -Nestor is a boring, rambling, old man who's better days are far behind him, and yet every Achaean treats him with the upmo...
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