Hellenism: A Handbook

1. Learn Greek and Latin I realize this isn't doable for everyone, but it should be the first item on the list for every single Hellenist, especially as one's resources for this are going to be best in high school and college. My recommendation for everyone is to start with Greek but Latin is fine if it's the only thing available. If you are in grade school, try to get into a high school with Greek and Latin (if only Latin, some Latin teachers know Greek and might be open to tutoring if you show potential). I know this might seem redundant as the original works have many translations and even some of the more obscurer works are being brought into English now, but there are a lot of nuances which are lost in translation and sometimes translators make mistakes: even in books published by academic institutions. One should learn the languages. 2. Check your baggage at the kiosk. I realize we all want to find 'pure' Hellenist ideas about the poems, but that's not the best way to learn about the texts. How exactly do I go about doing it, not from the perspective of an atheist scholar, but from the perspective of a Hellenist who venerates the Theoi in the texts? If you are a Hellenist, you have a Hellenist perspective. This is the part which should come naturally to you: you are a Hellenist, and the thoughts you have as you read a work and annotate it will be Hellenist thoughts. But I'd encourage everyone to go into it with an open mind. The writers were Hellenists, the Pagan commenters hundreds of years later were also Hellenists but had a very different Hellenism. Then there were Christians, then there were Atheists, and Jews, and people of all kinds of faiths offering insight into the texts. Be open to reading anything and critiquing everything: I have seen insights on texts from Christians which were fascinating, and insights from Pagans which I disagree with. 3. Learn the History I think it's helpful to have some grasp of what the history with these texts was. They didn't emerge fully-formed from the ground, they emerged in historical contexts and those are essential to understanding them. My go-to recommendation for this is the wide-ranging Literature and History podcast. It is unwieldy but very indepth. But listening to the creator, Metzger, take you from Homer to Nonnus would be pretty much the equivalent of two college courses on ancient literature in its historical context and I'd recommend every Hellenist who wants to be a scholar do so. If one doesn't have the 200 hours to devote to Literature and History, my book Hellenism: A Handbook is an attempt to put Hellenist literature and philosophy into a handbook which functions as a guide. It is much more focused on philosophy than on literature, but shares a similar goal. 4. Read the Texts The obvious next step. While I think the Iliad is the oldest, my recommendation for a reading order is as follows: Theogony Homeric Hymns Catalogue of Women (fragmentary but bridges the gap from gods to heroes) Iliad Odyssey Works and Days Tragedies Philosophical Works I see you want to move from Homer and Hesiod to Plato: I personally would really encourage getting some tragedies in: at the very least Prometheus Bound, the Oresteia, Oedipus Tyrannos (the whole Theban cycle if you can swing it), Philoctetes, Bacchae and Medea. 5. Read Pagan Commentaries Fortunately, we have some surviving Pagan commentaries! Unfortunately, they are scattered across dozens of works, and only a few survive as works themselves. I would recommend: The section on myth in Sallust's On the Gods and the World The sections on religion in Pseudo-Plutarch's Life and Poetry of Homer The sections on religion in Heraclitus the Grammarian's Homeric Problems Cornutus' Compendium of Greek Theology. As a result of it being difficult to access Pagan commentaries, I have tried to compile it deity by deity in my book, A Guide to the Gods. That will have excerpts from Theogony, Cratylus, Cornutus, Heraclitus, Ps.Plutarch, and others. 6. Read Works Which Came After (or elsewhere) The unfortunate thing is that a lot of Pagan thought about Pagan poetry was lost. The fortunate thing is that Christians still thought it worthwhile to engage with culturally. And this is why it's important not to let one's own baggage prevent one from finding beauty everywhere. One of the most fascinating thoughts about the Dioscuri comes from an Ancient Jewish writer, Philo (Embassy to Gaius, 84-85): Again, the Dioscuri are said to have shared the immortality between them, for since one of them was mortal and the other immortal he who had been judged worthy of the higher destiny did not think it fit to gratify his selfish instinct instead of showing affection to his brother. For having before his eyes the endless ages and reflecting that while he lived for ever his brother would be dead for ever and his mourning for him would be as everlasting as his own existence, he achieved a great and marvellous reciprocation in that he mingled mortality with his own lot and indestructibility with his brother’s, and thus made inequality, the source of injustice, vanish in equality, which is the fountain of justice. It's not always going to be a 'Hellenist' writer who gives us the best interpretation of a text. Nonnus, a poet whose religion is somewhat contested (Pagan? Christian? Neither? Both?) wove together the stories of Jesus and Lazarus and Dionysus and Ampelus in his Dionysiaca. What results is a beautiful musing on the love of either Jesus or Dionysus(or both) for humanity. So be open to whatever you find. The Vatican mythographers and the compilers of the Suda, medieval Christian writers, preserved many thoughts which were lost. I'd recommend every person at least read the entries from them on the gods they are devoted to. And then yeah, read modern scholarship. I don't know what every single scholar's religious affiliation is, but good scholars restrain themselves. JSTOR allows people to get a certain number of articles for free. My recommendations: Theogony: Anything by Jenny Strauss Clay. Her book Hesiod's Cosmos is a must, and if you have Greek her commentary with Vergados on the Theogony is essential. I have written several essays on the theology of the Theogony which preface my translation. Homeric Hymns: Jenny Strauss Clay's The Politics of Olympus is essential here. I am at work on a translation of the Hymns which will include theological commentary on each, but I am unsure when it will be published. Catalogue of Women: I don't think you need to read much commentary about Catalogue, it's just worth glancing at before continuing. Iliad: There's a lot of good stuff out there on the Iliad. Any indepth commentary will go book by book, and 24 books might be a bit steep to buy at once. If you are really gung ho about a Hellenist perspective, this is where to do it: I'd spring for copies of Ps.Plutarch's Life and Poetry and Heraclitus' Homeric Problems. More modern works abound, I am currently in love with Edith Hall's Epic of the Earth. Simone Weil's Iliad, or the Poem of Force is required reading (she was an ethnically Jewish, politically Marxist, Christian mystic who read Greek, so again I cannot emphasize enough how crucial it is to be open to other influnces). Odyssey: Again, a lot of good stuff. Ps.Plutarch and Heraclitus the Grammarian are crucial here as well. I would also add The Bow and the Lyre, that's essential. Works and Days (W&D). I am admittedly not as familiar with W&D as I should be. C. Martiana, a Pagan scholar, has translated some (maybe all?) of the scholia on W&D. I've heard this is good but haven't read it myself. Tragedies. Plenty of books out there about specific tragedies, my go to recommendation is always gonna be Prof. Michael Davis. The Philosophy of Tragedy is essential viewing for every Hellenist. Philosophical Works. Too broad at the outset but there are surviving Pagan commentaries on Plato which came after. 7. Synthesize So read/watch/listen to all that and write down what sounds interesting. If something doesn't gel with you, let it pass by, if it rubs you the wrong way, write out why and try to counter it. Try to get a feel for what the author of the work tried to accomplish in their day and what it accomplishes today. Ask yourself what questions do you still have? These commentaries arose because people living hundreds and sometimes thousands of years after the works were written still struggled to understand them: so they annotated them, commented on them, suggested potential textual revisions (generally based on the possibility that a transcriber made a mistake). We get to join them in that process, and to be honest, it's a lot of fun.