SWB & WEMA courses: Who has started reading for the first class?

[RootAnn]

I'm signed up for the delayed option for SWB's Great Journey Narratives class through WEMA. I'm getting ready to start reading through The Epic of Gilgamesh so I'm done around the first class, Sept 21st.

I need a bit of a headstart because I'm not the fastest reader in the world when it comes to classics. I admit to picking up the Kindle edition just today . . . 

 

Anyone else starting yet? (SWB's live class spots are sold out!!! It looks like Kate Snow's class still has a few seats left. American Identity & Human Origins could definitely use some takers.)

[Sleep-Deprived]

Hi RootAnn.  I am signed up too, and have also started reading. I know I'll feel squeezed during the school year.   I WISH I could attend the live class, but it falls at the same time that I'll be driving three of my kiddos to youth group.  I've now read and annotated the first three books.  I'm not fast either.  Thankfully for me, only three of the assigned books will be first time reads for me.  

 

I was disappointed that I did not enjoy reading Gilgamesh :huh: - I kept thinking a very unsophisticated "ewww," especially reading some of the end notes.  I found it easy enough to understand, but I did not really empathize with anyone - though I felt sorry for Enkidu.  I hope that there will be something in the questions or discussion that will make me want to return to it again and dig for something deeper.  (I have the same hope for The Inferno). 

 

On the other hand, I fell in love with Fagles' version of The Odyssey.  The class will have been worth it to me, just for that new introduction to The Odyssey.  I read Lattimore's version for the first time a couple years ago, but I felt more like I was observing the story than caught up in it.  As I read Fagles' version, instead of thinking "oh, THAT's an epic similie" - I kept getting caught up in the description and afterward could appreciate the resonance created by an effective epic simile. 

 

Happy reading!  Wish I could say, "See ya in class!"  :)

 

Jenny 

[RootAnn]

I'm about halfway through Gilgamesh. I wonder how much giggling the translator did when he put certain phrases down in print. I've had to annotate several sections with "show this to DH" type comments. I don't "eww" as much as roll my eyes. I think I'm missing the endnotes since I'm on my Kindle. I did skip the Intro since it seemed like it was spoon feeding me what I needed to get out of it myself.

 

Fagles' translation of The Odyssey is the one my DH has had for years. That's the only one of the books I've read before.  :leaving: He much prefers that one to the others. (When we help the older kids study for the Odyssey section of the Mythology test, we all have a different translation of it in front of us. DH gives one of the girls the Fagles version even though Fitzgerald is the translation they list. I end up with one of the free Kindle versions. I love to torture everyone with the rhyming verse one. It is so horrible!)

[Chrysalis Academy]

Which translation of Gilgamesh are you guys reading? I read a couple of different ones in the spring, and I was a little surprised at how differently different translators handled the . . . earthy bits.

[BrittanyM]

I am taking the "no homework" version of the class since I'm 4 months pregnant and not sure how well my brain will be functioning by the end of the semester! :) (My due date is Jan 4th.)

 

I haven't begun reading yet, although I should as I'm not quick with more difficult books either. I haven't read any of the required reading aside from Pilgrims Progress, which is embarrassing to admit. :P I am most intimidated by The Inferno, I think, it looks pretty boring to me. We're going on vacation next week though so maybe I'll take along Gilgamesh and see if I can get somewhere with it.

 

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[RootAnn]

Rose, here is a list of the required texts for SWB's class. We're reading Mitchell's translation. The only version I've previously read of Gilgamesh is McCaughrean's.  :lol:  Not a whole lot of earthy bits in there.

Surprisingly, Gilgamesh is going pretty quickly although I'm taking time to annotate as I go along.

 

Required Texts:
The Epic of Gilgamesh (c. 2000 B.C.), trans. Stephen Mitchell (Atria Books, 2006)
Homer, The Odyssey (c. 800 B.C.), trans. Robert Fagles (Penguin Classics, 2006)
Beowulf (c. 1000), trans. Seamus Heaney (W. W. Norton, 2001)
Dante Alighieri, Inferno (c. 1300), trans. Robert Pinsky (FS&G, 1996)
John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress (1649)
Richard Adams, Watership Down (1972)
Jill Ker Conway, The Road from Coorain (1989)
Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)

[Chrysalis Academy]

Thanks, RootAnn! I read the Mitchell and the Ferry translations, as well as a couple of kid versions.  I liked Mitchell, but I read the introduction along with it. Unlike you, I was feeling unsure of my ability to "get" everything without a little hand-holding!  Shannon read the Mitchell translation too and enjoyed it much  more than she expected to. I had her work through a set of study questions after she finished reading them - short essay style questions - and she thought that she got a lot more out of the reading after going back through and answering the questions.  I don't know that she quite got to rhetoric-stage reading, but at least logic-stage, for sure.  

 

I'll be interested to hear how the classes go for you guys! I was a bit tempted by this class but didn't think I'd have the time to do it justice. Plus I don't think I could make myself read The Pilgrim's Progress, and I've already tried and abandoned The Road from Coorain.  Oh well.