Welcome to Litsy!

#aprilpoetrychallenge
#NationalPoetryMonth
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@wanderinglynn

#theodyssey #penelope 🧡💛🧡

Book mail

This fabulous edition of John Milton's epic poem came in the mail a few days ago.

The illustrations by Gustave Dore are spot on.

When I purchased this huge tome, I didn't realize the actual size of the book. A pocket book it's not... 🙄😆

But I'm glad I got it, all the same.

I probably won't start this baby for a few weeks until I finish up some of the multitude of books I've started.

#bookmail #poetry #epicpoems

A fair amount of reading was done in March. While many books are in the 3-star range, I did really enjoy The Odyssey (read over two months). I finished ny #BookSpin and #DoubleSpin, read a couple of books for #192025, read two books set in big cities for #FictionalTraveler, a couple of #1001Books, and I even got a Bingo.

Well, this was stirring stuff! It makes some of Uhtred of Bebbanburg's escapades look like a church fête!
There's no getting away from its being a matter of masculine heroics in the extreme; part of me wanted to find it all a bit ridiculous on that account. However, I was audio-drawing and more than once I realised my pen had been hovering motionless over the paper for some minutes. Audio is *definitely* the way to go with this.

Reread with IRL club and it was a raucous good time, lots of fodder for laughter and discussion.

Once again struck by the highly relatable themes. Humanity hasn‘t fundamentally changed.

Emily Wilson's translation gets a HUGE standing O from me, and Audra McDonald's audiobook narration is unbelievably moving and deeply emotional. It's a long listen (took me 4 weeks to get through), but it's worth the commitment. And the quote here from Wilson's introduction could not be more true. The loss throughout the story is staggering in scale, brutal and overwhelming- yet the grief described is so human and so cathartic. Bravo all around.

5am flight fuel

@dabbe #ThreeListThursday

My three favorites and ones that I still read are.
1. Beowulf
2. Canterbury Tales
3. Don Quixote

This could have been a really interesting spiritual successor (at the time) to Homer, but this read more like Roman Empire propaganda than an original work.

Virgil does have *some* original ideas and portrayals of the characters and events in the overall story, but it still feels like you're better off reading the Iliad and the Odyssey.

#poetrymatters
#wag
@TheSpineView

For me, the saddest passage in this epic poem.