The Homer-Industrial Complex | Episode LXXV
09/01/24 • 58 min
The Iliad was more popular than the Odyssey beginning in ancient times, and continued to be all the way up to World War One. Then, something changed. Now the Odyssey leaves the Iliad in the dust in terms of which poem gets assigned more frequently in school, in book sales, and simply in the stated preference of readers. What happened? Ryan and Jonathan read Edward Luttwak's essay, Homer Inc., about the thriving industry of Homer translations, the ancient redactors of Homer, the historicity of the Trojan War, and one of the perennial questions any humanist must answer - and to which Luttwak gives his own idiosyncratic response: Why does Homer matter?
Edward Luttwak's Homer Inc.: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n04/edward-luttwak/homer-inc
NH episode on Melanchthon and Homer: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/13181921-return-of-the-old-gods-in-germany-episode-lii
NH episode on Weil and Homer: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/10429309-the-iliad-or-the-poem-of-force-episode-xxi
NH episode on Nietzsche and Homer: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/13949908-nietzsche-homer-and-cruelty-episode-lvi
Stephen Mitchell's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781439163382
Robert Fagles's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140275360
Emily Wilson's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781324001805
Richmond Lattimore's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780226470498
Peter Green's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780520281431
Robert Fitzgerald's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780374529055
New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/
Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.
Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
The Iliad was more popular than the Odyssey beginning in ancient times, and continued to be all the way up to World War One. Then, something changed. Now the Odyssey leaves the Iliad in the dust in terms of which poem gets assigned more frequently in school, in book sales, and simply in the stated preference of readers. What happened? Ryan and Jonathan read Edward Luttwak's essay, Homer Inc., about the thriving industry of Homer translations, the ancient redactors of Homer, the historicity of the Trojan War, and one of the perennial questions any humanist must answer - and to which Luttwak gives his own idiosyncratic response: Why does Homer matter?
Edward Luttwak's Homer Inc.: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n04/edward-luttwak/homer-inc
NH episode on Melanchthon and Homer: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/13181921-return-of-the-old-gods-in-germany-episode-lii
NH episode on Weil and Homer: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/10429309-the-iliad-or-the-poem-of-force-episode-xxi
NH episode on Nietzsche and Homer: https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/13949908-nietzsche-homer-and-cruelty-episode-lvi
Stephen Mitchell's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781439163382
Robert Fagles's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780140275360
Emily Wilson's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781324001805
Richmond Lattimore's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780226470498
Peter Green's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780520281431
Robert Fitzgerald's Iliad: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780374529055
New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/
Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.
Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Previous Episode
Humanism, With or Without God, feat. Eric Adler | Episode LXXIV
For the first time, a collection of Irving Babbitt's and Paul Elmer More's correspondence has been published. Eric Adler, the editor of the collection (titled "Humanistic Letters") joins the show to discuss the collection, New Humanism, and the question that caused more controversy between Babbitt and More than anything else: Do humanists need to believe in God?
Eric Adler's Humanistic Letters: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780826222909
Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780197680810
Irving Babbitt's Literature and the American College: https://amzn.to/3YIP0Ml
New Humanists episode Can Humanism Replace Christianity? https://newhumanists.buzzsprout.com/1791279/12494774-can-humanism-replace-christianity-episode-xliv
Justin Garrison and Ryan Holston's The Historical Mind: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781438478432
Ryan Holston's Irving Babbitt and Christianity: A Response to T.S. Eliot: https://www.academia.edu/43227260/Irving_Babbitt_and_Christianity_A_Response_to_T_S_Eliot
C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652944
Norman Foerster's Humanism and America: https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.88302/page/n5/mode/2up
Luke Sheahan's The Intellectual Kinship of Irving Babbitt and C.S.Lewis: https://www.pdcnet.org/humanitas/content/humanitas_2016_0029_0001_0005_0042
C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060652920
Paul Elmer More's The Greek Tradition: https://amzn.to/4dxbXGQ
New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/
Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.
Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
Next Episode
Florence the Heir of Rome | Episode LXXVI
What if the true heir of the Roman Empire was not Rome, but Florence? Over the course of his life and career as a scholar and politician, the great humanist Leonardo Bruni made this argument multiple times, and in a variety of ways. In doing so, he gave novel accounts of liberty and virtue, and eventually moved away from an appeal to Florence's Roman roots and appealed instead to her Etruscan roots. In doing so, he laid the groundwork for the preeminent Italian political thinker commonly associated with the birth of modernity: Niccolò Machiavelli.
New Humanists episode on Leonardo Bruni's letter to Battista Malatesta: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1791279/episodes/14460440-mediocrity-versus-glory-in-the-renaissance-episode-lxii
James Hankins's Virtue Politics: https://amzn.to/3UiQpp3
Leonardo Bruni's History of the Florentine People: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780674005068
C.S. Lewis's The Weight of Glory: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9780060653200
Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics: https://bookshop.org/a/25626/9781107612235
Donatello's Saint George: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_George_(Donatello)
Roberto Valturio's De re militari: https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=315
New Humanists is brought to you by the Ancient Language Institute: https://ancientlanguage.com/
Links may have referral codes, which earn us a commission at no additional cost to you. We encourage you, when possible, to use Bookshop.org for your book purchases, an online bookstore which supports local bookstores.
Music: Save Us Now by Shane Ivers - https://www.silvermansound.com
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