Jump to content

Menu

Ancient Great Book list


Recommended Posts

I'm compiling a list for ancients next year. This will primarily be for my own self-education, but I'm anticipating my 7th grader will listen with me to several longer works and read several plays. I want to own these for their use in the future also.

 

Teaching helps :

WTM

WEM

Invitation to the Classics

Heroes of the City of Man, Leithart

online guides

 

Epic of Gilgamesh (Ferry)

Iliad/Odyssey (Fagles w/audio)

Aeschylus, The Oresteia (Fagles)

Herodotus, Histories (Strassler)

Sophocles:Three Theban Plays (Fagles)

Euripides:Bachae (Vellacott)

Aristophanes: Birds (Moses Hadas)

Plato, The Republic (Sterling/Scott)

Aristotle Nichomachean Ethics (in Introduction to Aristotle, McKeon)

Greek Lyrics, (Lattimore)

Virgil Aeneid, (Fagles w/audio - that's why not Fitzgerald!)

Plutarch's Lives - Greek Lives and Roman Lives (Waterfield)

Athanasius, On the Introduction (want to find OOP w/ C.S. Lewis intro)

Josephus:Essential Works (Maier)

Eusebius: The Church History (Maier)

 

16 works but several are short plays. Is there anything you would change? Thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Here's my list, for comparison. We are also doing an intensive study of about half of the OT books, using Omnibus, A House for My Name, and Words of Delight, integrated with our Ancients studies.

 

resources:

WEM and WTM

Heroes of the City of Man

Omnibus I and IV

Invitation to the Classics

 

works:

Epic of Gilgamesh

Odyssey (Homer)

Theban Trilogy (Sophocles)

The Oresteia (Aeschylus)

The Histories* (Herodotus)

Medea, Bacchae (Euripides)

Birds, Clouds (Aristophanes)

Republic (Plato)

Poetics (Aristotle)

Archimedes (selected essays)

Aeneid (Virgil)

Lives (Plutarch)

Metamorphoses (Ovid)

Annals (Tacitus)

 

I am planning to do the New Testaments books and early church history next year, so we will read your last three, but in Year 2.

 

Ethics and the lyric poets were on my list, but were cut for room. I think those are great choices, though!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[)

Metamorphoses (Ovid)

Annals (Tacitus)QUOTE]

 

I'm a bit weak on Rome, so I'll consider these. Which translation of Ovid are you using?

 

We are primarily using TQ Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome together with my 5th and 7th grader. They will read many of the adaptations on their own. I want to read the real works though! That is great you are making 2 volumes of Omnibus work for you instead of following their timetable.

Edited by LNC
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dd enjoyed Mandelbaum's translation of Metamorphoses. I read part of it. It received excellent Amazon reviews. If you get strapped for time, it is a book of stories which you can pick and choose from. I loved the story of Phaeton who talked his father into letting him drive the chariot--with disastrous results. Beautifully written/translated.

 

I bought the Athanasius book w/C.S. Lewis intro a couple of years ago. It might be back in print b/c I saw it recently(?) at both Amazon and cbd.com.

isbn of my book is 9780913836408.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Dd enjoyed Mandelbaum's translation of Metamorphoses. I read part of it. It received excellent Amazon reviews. If you get strapped for time, it is a book of stories which you can pick and choose from. I loved the story of Phaeton who talked his father into letting him drive the chariot--with disastrous results. Beautifully written/translated.

 

I bought the Athanasius book w/C.S. Lewis intro a couple of years ago. It might be back in print b/c I saw it recently(?) at both Amazon and cbd.com.

isbn of my book is 9780913836408.

 

 

Wow - thanks for that Ovid tranlation rec and the Athanasius/Lewis isbn#. I did not come across those in my Amazon searches. They are both on my wish list - thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[)

Metamorphoses (Ovid)

Annals (Tacitus)QUOTE]

 

I'm a bit weak on Rome, so I'll consider these. Which translation of Ovid are you using?

 

We are primarily using TQ Ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome together with my 5th and 7th grader. They will read many of the adaptations on their own. I want to read the real works though! That is great you are making 2 volumes of Omnibus work for you instead of following their timetable.

 

We're using this Ovid. It's recommended by Veritas, and I've seen it recommended by others in my research.

 

I haven't bought our Tacitus or Plutarch yet, so those are still undecided. I have a copy of Plutarch's Lives from college, but it's very abbreviated, so we need a new one.

 

We love the essays in Omnibus, but I wanted to use the WTM method (context papers, notes, essays) for the books. It's working very well.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would personally add more Aristotle and Plato. Aristotle is difficult--I recommend Aristotle for Everybody by Mortimer Adler. Most of Aristotle you would probably want to read selections rather than in their entirety. Many of Plato's dialogues are very short and fun to read--I would definitely read more than the Republic (if you have the time.)

Just as a comparison, here is the freshman year list from the school that I went to, which is supposed to be the most important works in Western thought.

 

HOMER: Iliad, Odyssey

AESCHYLUS: Agamemnon, Libation Bearers, Eumenides, Prometheus Bound

SOPHOCLES: Oedipus Rex, Oedipus at Colonus, Antigone, Philoctetes, Ajax

THUCYDIDES: Peloponnesian War

EURIPIDES: Hippolytus, Bacchae

HERODOTUS: Histories

ARISTOPHANES: Clouds

PLATO: Meno, Gorgias, Republic, Apology, Crito, Phaedo, Symposium, Parmenides, Theaetetus, Sophist, Timaeus, Phaedrus

ARISTOTLE: Poetics, Physics, Metaphysics, Nicomachean Ethics, On Generation and Corruption, Politics, Parts of Animals, Generation of Animals

EUCLID: Elements

LUCRETIUS: On the Nature of Things

PLUTARCH: Lycurgus, Solon

NICOMACHUS: Arithmetic

 

 

I don't remember Nicomachus at all--maybe it wasn't on the reading list when I went to school. Maybe it wasn't that memorable. :glare:

 

hth, Elena

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One additional thought-- I regret not leaving enough time for much Plutarch in dd's studies. An important life would be Plutarch's essay on Julius Caesar; it is apparently the major source Shakespeare used for his play. I recommend reading the biographical sketches as pairs, and I do like the Waterfield trans. on your list, as SWB recommended in WEM. From your library in an older edition of Lives or online you might be able to find several short essays Plutarch wrote, each of which compares two lives. They were reportedly written as writing exercises. Wikipedia and other places list the pairs of Greek-Roman lives if it's not given in the book you have.

 

 

Wow - thanks for that Ovid tranlation rec and the Athanasius/Lewis isbn#. I did not come across those in my Amazon searches. They are both on my wish list - thanks!
You are very welcome.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share

×
×
  • Create New...