Skip to main content

Those Wacky Spartans: The Platypus Reads Part CCXIII

While my academic interests have run (since college) towards the Ancient Greeks, I have to confess to not being terribly interested in Sparta.  I'm always a sucker for literature and the Spartans didn't really produce much (Tyrtaeus and Alkman).  However, Sparta is the second most attested Greek polis in the ancient sources.  That means that if you want to study "Ancient Greece" and have it mean anything more than just "Ancient Athens," you have to deal with Sparta.  So, helping me come to grip with those laconic Lakonians are Paul Cartledge's The Spartans and Spartan Reflections.

The Spartans is an introduction for a popular audience to the world of the ancient Spartans.  It's well laid-out, covering in an efficient and pleasant manner the relevant political history, key figures, and key questions in Spartan studies.  Spartan Reflections is a collection of Cartledge's essays on Sparta running up to the early oughts.  That makes it a little dated, but a wonderful way to go deeper and get into the scholarly controversies surrounding Greece's famed warriors.  Both books have been enjoyable reads and Cartledge's interest in his subject is infectious.

So, do I plan on sticking with Spartan studies?  No.  I think it will be back to Homer after I wrap up Spartan Reflections.  Still, the time has been well spent and I feel like I've shored up a few points that were getting dangerously shaky after all those years away from college.  So how about you?  Ready to try a little "Lakonizing"?  If so, then Paul Cartledge may have just the book you're looking for.     
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Savage Tales of Solomon Kane: The Platypus Reads Part CCLII

I needed a break from A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (too many authors and too many styles coming in too fast) so I decided to turn back to an author whose work I've enjoyed exploring: Robert E. Howard.  This time, however, I decided to skip over Howard's famous Conan yarns and instead take a look at one of his earlier creations, Solomon Kane.  The idea of a puritan occult detective was too intriguing to pass up.  I have the whole collection of Kane's tales and I do intend to blog them all.  Right now, my little literary detour has only encompassed the first two short stories so I'm going to record my thoughts on them right away and get back to the rest as I have time. Skulls in the Stars Solomon Kane makes his debut with this classic bit of English Gothic including a haunted moor, a vengeful ghost, and a solitary miser.   Howard's Kane fits the portrait of the archetypal puritan: grim, principled, metaphysical, with an iron sense of right and wrong.  I h...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Treasury of Modern Fantasy (Cont.): The Platypus Reads Part CCLI

Wow, it's hard to read anthologies at anything other than a slow crawl.  The change from author to author and style to style is exhausting.  Slowing down is a good thing, though, if it makes time for reflection.  That seems like one good reason to create an anthology: to force readers to slow down and reflect. With that as a preamble, let's move on to today's selections. The Black Ferris by Ray Badbury I didn't expect to see this Sci-Fi heavy hitter in a Fantasy collection, but there you go.  I've tried to get into Bradbury once or twice and failed.  His Martian Chronicles , in particular, resisted all my best efforts.  This short story, however, worked like a charm.  The sense of atmosphere in particular is masterfully done (a sort of Tom Sawyer strays into Edgar Allan Poe).  My only complaint is that there isn't more of it, but apparently Bradbury already fixed that by expanding the story into Something Wicked This Way Comes. This raise...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Platypus Reads Part XXVII

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...
15 comments
Read more