Slow Motion Mary
Padawan Learner
Re: The Odyssey - question for all!
Read it years ago in high school before the curriculum was change to include stuff like "Flowers for Algernon" and "Jonathan Livingston Seagull". Homer's "Iliad" was next on my list, but I'll swap it for "The Odyssey" to keep up. I get my classics from Internet Classics Archive at classics.mit.edu. Anyone know anything about this source? Seems okay. Would everyone be interested in reading "The Odyssey" and keeping in mind "ring composition"? This year's first quarter issue of "Parabola" digest*, which I picked up to read about "suffering" and it had an interesting article on ring composition: "The earliest extant writing, works such as the Avesta of Zoroaster, the books of the Hebrew Bible, the Vedas in India, and Homer's narratives in Greece, were all written in a non-linear synoptic style. In ring or annular composition, each chapter, or each segment of the story, has a non-local relation that does not follow in linear sequence. Rather than being in linear order, the segments are related in a circle and each piece relates, not to the one before or after it, but rather to the one across the circle from it." I thought this style of writing might illuminate why the Old Testament is so difficult to read so I am working on an outline of "Genesis" which I wanted to share with everybody. I picked "Genesis" instead of Homer's work because it is more familiar to me. I am not done with it yet, but when I'm done I'll post the outline and go from there, if there is interest. *Parabola is a quarterly digest that focuses on themes common to different spiritual traditions. You'll find Christianity, Judaism, Sufism, Buddhism, etc., as well as book reviews.
Read it years ago in high school before the curriculum was change to include stuff like "Flowers for Algernon" and "Jonathan Livingston Seagull". Homer's "Iliad" was next on my list, but I'll swap it for "The Odyssey" to keep up. I get my classics from Internet Classics Archive at classics.mit.edu. Anyone know anything about this source? Seems okay. Would everyone be interested in reading "The Odyssey" and keeping in mind "ring composition"? This year's first quarter issue of "Parabola" digest*, which I picked up to read about "suffering" and it had an interesting article on ring composition: "The earliest extant writing, works such as the Avesta of Zoroaster, the books of the Hebrew Bible, the Vedas in India, and Homer's narratives in Greece, were all written in a non-linear synoptic style. In ring or annular composition, each chapter, or each segment of the story, has a non-local relation that does not follow in linear sequence. Rather than being in linear order, the segments are related in a circle and each piece relates, not to the one before or after it, but rather to the one across the circle from it." I thought this style of writing might illuminate why the Old Testament is so difficult to read so I am working on an outline of "Genesis" which I wanted to share with everybody. I picked "Genesis" instead of Homer's work because it is more familiar to me. I am not done with it yet, but when I'm done I'll post the outline and go from there, if there is interest. *Parabola is a quarterly digest that focuses on themes common to different spiritual traditions. You'll find Christianity, Judaism, Sufism, Buddhism, etc., as well as book reviews.
