It’s wild that the U.K. doesn’t teach the Odyssey, I thought their whole thing was stealing other peoples’ culture and pretending they owned it now.
Not in secondary school but I did the Illiad, the Anaed, the Odyssey and Ovids Metamorphoses in 6th form college.
Shakespeare invented literature, so clearly there’s no value in teaching anything from before him…
You haven’t experienced Shakespeare unless you read it in the original klingon.
taH pagh taHbe’!
ghu’ qaS wa’DIch’e’, qar’a’!
Fair point.
Well Greece wasn’t ever a British colony, so they didn’t have as many opportunities to steal artifacts and culture as they did with, say, Egypt or India
I’m sure they had ample opportunity to steal Greek artefacts from when Greeks invaded Egypt and India.
……………I did the odyssey at various points man I think the guy in the tweet is just Polyphemus or smthn like ‘I don’t know who this nobody guy is, ain’t never heard of no odyssey before bro’
Is it even taught in the US? 🤔
I didn’t read it for school. I just liked reading and had this gnarly book featuring all the greatest hits of Greek mythology growing up.
My 10th grade English class studied a small section of it, like one self contained story.
This is what we did as well, in AP English. We also did Beowulf. We also had to read the first fucking Harry Potter book because the teacher liked Harry Potter. Imagine a group of the highest achieving 17 and 18 year olds out of 600 students their age writing papers about a book written for 10 year olds.
Such a waste of time. We got college credit for this bullshit. I’m still mad about it.
I feel like there’s a way to do it that doesn’t suck - an examination of the book WRT the hero’s journey, picking out elements borrowed from English literary tradition to see how they’re deployed v. original texts, etc.
Real talk though, I feel it comes from a place of not knowing how to appeal to young people. I ran into the very same thing once when asked about course ideas for first year students coming directly from high school. I had no idea (still don’t) what would appeal to kids, so I thought a course that used Harry Potter as a keystone text (everybody being familiar, using it as a bridge to more traditional lit) could work. But as I said the words I knew 18 year old me would’ve hated that, sooo…
I read it for school
Literally a part of a classical education. As in Classical.
We had to do skits. Broke it down by chapters and each group did like a page or two. I was the son in the scene where he’s working with his dad in disguise right when Odysseus returns home and sees all the other guys trying to bang his wife
That we did do; but for The Lion in Winter. I was Geoffrey.
Definitely was in the rural, redneck school I went to.
Went to a mediocre high school in the US, and I had an English/writing course where the only materials were the Aeneid, Illiad, Odyssey, and Mythology by Edith Hamilton.
That seems above average, but I don’t have too much to compare it to. I read all of this when I took Latin as my language classes. And the odyssey for fun.
I’ve heard of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, does that count?
That translation has fallen out of favor with contemporary scholars but you get the gist.
Just looked it up, the Odyssey can be taught in the UK but it is rarely chosen because Shakespeare is easier to teach and students who pick Shakespeare get better grades on average.
Odd that it’s a choice between them. We learned Shakespeare and Homer where I am in the US.
We don’t like to brag about it but we fought the Brits in the War of 1812, one of the things we took from England was Greek literature. In turn, we Americans lost the definition of jams vs jelly and the superior spelling of “colour”.
I rebel against this fact by being American and using the spelling of “Grey” for the color, autocorrect be damned.
To be fair, the only people left on Xitter are idiots
The world is awash in morons and they aren’t localized to that venue, although by way of it’s very structure, it’s a venue that strongly attracts people incapable of holding two thoughts at the same time.
As G Carlin would have said, think how stupid the average person is and realize 50% are stupider than that. This is the world we live in - where the trivial thoughts emerging from society’s dreck take have equal stage and prominence to expertise and wisdom
I have to admit that I have not read the Illias or the Odyssey in school, either. We were made read books in school intendet to make children shy away from books, so they won’t touch any of them after school ever again.
Luckily I had read loads of good books by that time, so I knew that only a few are as horrible as the ones they made us read in school.
It does feel a lot like that, doesn’t it? Why else would the Bronte sisters be on the curriculum if not to snuff out any interest in literature?
Only boring kids would find Wuthering Heights & Jane Eyre boring. Both books would be excellent choices in any curriculum. If you wanna talk boring early 19th century authors, Jane Austen is the name you’re looking for.
I found Wuthering Heights more miserable than boring.
It could be worse. We read Brecht and Kafka. Several works of them. I’ve never encountered worse waste of paper and ink than those idiots. And the rest was not much better.
Just because it was wasted on you doesn’t mean it’s a bad idea, Kafka’s short stories especially (Die Verwandlung, Ein Landarzt etc) are accessible for teenagers and a good gateway drug to get interested in other things. Which is really important for kids that don’t have natural access to literature at home.
Sorry, but I experienced “Die Verwandlung” as written diarrhea of a person with severe mental problems. “Der Prozess” didn’t improve my opition of him, either.
Well, lead a horse to water etc, doesn’t mean we should stop making teens read books in school they wouldn’t be exposed to otherwise. At least now you have both read and formed an opinion on two of the most influential and well regarded works of world literature. (And hopefully they also made you read a lot of other literature in diverse styles and genres.)
The problem is not about “reading books they would not read otherwise”. Sadly, many, if not most, kids don’t get exposed to books anymore except in school. And then they are confronted with unlikable stuff that makes them shy away from ever touching a book again.
I still hope that one day the people who decide what children and teens should read in school get their elitist heads out of their asses and actually try to get kids to read because they enjoy reading a book. Problem is that most people in that area seem to hate books that actually sell in the shops because people like to read them. Like I said about Reich-Ranizky once: he would not notice a good book if it bit him.
So the obvious solution is they should read more books, more varied stuff, not less. Popular, niche, basic, normative, weird, etc.
Of course, your assumption that all teens hate Kafka just because you do is demonstrably false. The assumption that books sell simply because they are actually better and more enjoyable to read is also false, there are a lot of other factors at play.
The kids that enjoy reading will find what is pushed in the book shops anyway, but kids from working class homes will never be exposed to anything else - and therefore have no chance to decide if they like it or not.
There are basic versions of these stories with big drawings, mostly made for kids. Basically manga. When i was a kid(in Greece), 35 years ago, i had this
https://www.stratikis.gr/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/iliada-nea.jpg
This is Iliad and it was cooler than Odyssey. Badass dudes with almost divine powers fighting other dudes and entire armies on their own, while Gods are taking sides and fucking things up. Isnt that shonen.
Odyssey’s ending was cool though, even if it was a bit sad.
the illias and the odyssey are ancient greek literature, I don’t think they’re that fun to read.
But, you still should be taught about their existence in history.
What! He never saw Wishbone’s the Odyssey?
I was way to old for Wishbone but damn did I stop and watch when that cute fucking dog was on the tv. Anyone who didn’t is a heartless bastard.
Did “history of the world” not mention Homer?
The Illiad and the Odyssey are classics and hardly American culture. They are western culture as a whole. No idea what the drama is about but some dude not knowing what the Odyssey is, is the same as not knowing any other classic. (There are too many to count, but not knowing the most popular ones are is like not knowing the titanic sank.) (Spoilers)
That’s the joke.
$10 says the dipshit in question did a frantic google, saw ‘ulysses’ and went james joyce.
Still not American though
Getting closer at least
…the US is not closer to the UK than Ireland though…
I’m a little mad that Nolan is making the Odyssey. It’s gonna be so pretentious and trendy, and I’d be surprised if Anya Taylor Joy, Timothee chalamet and Jeremy Allan White aren’t in it, to round it out into the most pretentious movie in history
Edit: Nolan can’t film anything but drama. Go watch Batman again and notice how awful the fight scenes are shot and the terrible choreography.
Anya Taylor Joy would do a great circe imo
Yeah, another heavy dramatic saga to wade through. I think I’d prefer a Simon Pegg/Nick Frost adaptation. Or maybe a Matt Stone/Trey Parker version. Something still epic, but also hilarious and full of the vibrancy of humans.
You bring up a point, that in these Greek Epics you do find humor. But Christopher Nolan doesn’t know what a sense of humor is
There were a couple of moments in Oppenheimer that had me laughing out loud, but I don’t think that was the intention.
may nigel farage further dumb down the island people.
…may we see the tweets?
thankies 💚
Rude tweets? At this time of year?
I am tired of western Cinema jerking off to same old stories, which tbh aren’t the pinnacle of literature or storytelling. There are so many cultural epics which are deserving of the big screen, but unfortunately this western culture bias keeps the general audience from being exposed to any of it.
It wouldn’t matter, but the issue is then you have utter fucking illiterates and philistines who believe that only western writers, thinkers or philosophers came up with anything good. New flash, many, many of the western writers took their influence from non-western sources.
How many movies are there about the Odyssey?
Western media trends towards the myths and legends from western culture? No shit
I mean, what else would you expect? That’s human nature. Kinda a wild thing to be complaining about
But imagine if African or pre-Columbine American mythologies were used to film movies and series.
I get what you’re saying, but I guess I am just idealistic and expect more from people, like being honest about the sources and influences of their works
Edit here’s one of the inspirations for Homers odyssey, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_of_Gilgamesh
Look, I am not saying both of these aren’t great works with their own merits, I am just saying that people aren’t exposed to different things and then live with cultural and racial biases.
I mean
Every culture does that, though? If anything, Americans appreciating the works of the Greeks is as widespread and diverse as a culture can possibly get.
Every couple of years Chinese make a new Sun Wukong move, TV show, or videogame. Tibetan Monks and the Dali Lama are a huge cultural phenomenon all over the world. Wuxia/Xianxia based on old Taoism writings and diagrams are popular in all forms of media. Period Dramas about the old aristocracy in Asia are a huge genre.
Koreans shove Korean dragons and Dokaebi into every medium they can. Japanese love them some Shinto priestess main characters and Yokai stories.
Arabia’s got thieves guilds, Solomon, and genies and other creatures of fire and wind.
Russia has Baba Yaga and Rasputin depictions.
Germany and western Europe have Fairy Tales.
India has a strong and proud history of racism, classism, Hinduism, nepotism, sexism, I don’t really remember where I was going with this point, tbh.
Africa… Honestly, Africa might need more time to recover, idk what their cultural epics entail…
That’s how culture works. The differences and uniqueness make them worth experiencing, and why people work so hard to preserve them in perpetuity across many generations. Except India. Idk y tf they’re doing that shit.
They could all appreciate some other shit, yeah, but that’s not how culture works.
This comment serves as a reminder that the normalized hatred directed at India/South Asia on Reddit is alive and well on Lemmy too
A wise man once said “There are two things in the world I can’t stand: people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures… and the Dutch.”
In both his case and mine, the cultural insensitivity was part of the joke.
fucking crazy to denigrate South Asia like that when you made the effort to respect culture for all the other regions you mentioned. I guess all the other countries you mentioned don’t have a history of racism, classism, nepotism, sexism or religion?
No they do but for most of them it’s sort of died off a little bit in the last 200 years.
In India, it doesn’t seem to be declining much…
Looks like it’s being lifted up.
I would actually argue that in many ways it’s increasing, at least in Pakistan where I have family, although these aren’t the only countries with growing fascism and regressive social politics (see lots of Europe and of course the US).
But your comment was about stories of cultural importance, not race or gender or class; I can’t help but feel offended that you would choose to shit on my culture for some reason instead of identifying relevant stories like you did for the other cultures you mentioned in your comment. I agree that those -isms should be criticized, but India definitely caught a stray from your comment.
Yeah, and I did very poorly represent my case. I really didn’t give it much effort or thought, and I apologize for that. It just appears from an outsiders perspective that the Caste System, while not officially in effect, is an integral part of India’s society and it shows in their films and TV. This is also true for the USA whose poor record of Civil Rights is also a continued focus for films and TV.
That wasn’t exactly my point. There are examples of Epic tales from other cultures which people often get exposure to by default because the main focus of western cinema or storytelling is Greek or English.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_folk-epics
Note that epic tales are a distinct type of genre
Every couple of years Chinese make a new Sun Wukong move, TV show, or videogame.
Let’s not forget that in the same way you can trace a huge amount of things you see in Western stories to the Greek epics and Gilgamesh you can trace a huge amount of things you see in anime/manga to the Journey to the West.
The problem is, I have this big bag of stones in my glass house, and I want to throw them at the UK for being dumb, but if I do, I also have to admit the US education system is trash.
I’ll throw that stone for you
The British education system is almost as bad as the American education system. The biggest difference between our cultures is that a lot of Americans are willing to point out how incredibly racist our country is
It’s not just slavery minimization. A lot of far right Americans have taken over local school boards to ban books that talk about gay people existing or the fact that sex is something that happens, among other nefarious purposes. And a religious organization in Texas writes pretty much all the textbooks used across the country. It can’t be this bad in the UK can it?
So much broken glass, was it worth it? Now I have to go get the broom.
The amazing part is you somehow broke France and the Netherland’s glass too? Just so much to clean up.
Both can be true. We can be trash in different ways!
I mean, I have no qualms with recognizing the US education system is garbage… It gives me more fire to try to improve it.
I can do both. I’m ot gonna let some backwater pit like the UK insult my home, especially since the UK is essentially completely dependent on the US at this point.
I never got into geography, tbh. It’s not actually that useful for anything.
How would you know if you never got into it? Sounds ignorant to me
Thats fair, but it’s not even used for chartering and navigating, so what is it good for?
To clarify, though, when I say “geography” I’m referring to borders for countries, states, and counties on a large scale. Things like USGS terrain data and coordinate grids aren’t included.
Geography is very broad. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geography
In my geography class, we were taught about how weather and climate happens. Geography has as much influence on it as physics. So whenever someone points out why it is so cold if there is global warming, I teach them that warming temperatures fuels warm high pressure areas, which pushes out colder low pressure area. For example, if the American East Coast is experiencing extremely cold temperatures, the other side of the Atlantic would be experiencing warmer but rainy intense storms because the high pressure area is pushing the colder low pressure area to the US East Coast. As you can see, extreme weathers will only get worse because of climate change as the world gets warmer.
But I think the most practical everyday geography knowledge for people is knowing why the taste of tap water sucks. Just know that areas with limestone bedrocks have water that taste better. Limestone is full of calcium and other minerals, and filters groundwater quite well unlike in areas that have igneous rocks such as basalt or granite.
I don’t want to sound like I’m pontificating but I believe it’s important to have as much general knowledge as possible because you never know when those knowledge might have practical utility one day. You don’t have to memorise all the knowledge you learn, but it’s good if you can keep them at the back of your mind in case they are needed one day. But on the one hand, yeah there are more immediate practical concerns that requires more specific knowledge. Knowing about Jupiter will not fix a pipe leak in your kitchen. It’s about having the balance and knowing when to use seemingly useless knowledge, and what knowledge you need to use for more practical cases. Overall though, it’s better to have broad knowledge as it makes you less impervious to misinformation.
Well I learned about the atmosphere and ozone in science and chemistry classes and I learned math in Physics, and Meteorology should be a completely distinct subject from just naming municipal districts on a map.
geography also teaches you how the weather affects the earth via erosion, which lets you predict if it’s a good idea to build a house somewhere (not really relevant in 2034 though)
also, you’re confusing geography with topography
yes it is. you learn how the world works. what gets exported from where. where the refugees come from and to, and why. what conflicts there are, where, and why.
Sounds pretty violent. I hear about refugees pretty well without it, personally. As an analogy, not everyone needs to be a meteorologist to know the weather.
yes, you dont need to know about the history of the weather and why it happens to understand that it will be raining tomorrow. But, i think it’s kinda relevant to know how and why to understand what side of a conflict to support.
geography also helps you understand the claims politicians make and to see if they’re bs
The actual physical location, which side of an imaginary line a person was born on, should absolutely mean fuck all when deciding who to side with.
Only what each side intends to do and is capable of doing, to minimize all possible harm and loss.
that’s… what I said? geography helps you understand what each side intends to do and is capable of doing.
geography ≠ topography
Lmao no
because your many years of experience with the subject geography have taught you that geography is topography?
"the world doesn’t revolve around your country"country Said the user from UK.
Silly anglophone countries, the world actually revolves around the chad mediterranean
The American version has more Laser-shark-launching gun-swords though fewer exposed boobs.
Really not the same without the sirens.
