This is the kind of nerd I am

Nothing to do with feminist mothering. I could draw a long bow, but I'm not going to bother.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/sep/21/madeline-miller-top-10-classical-books

This conversation is making me nostalgic for hanging out with Classicists at university. I wrote my M. Lit thesis on a feminist rewriting of Cassandra. A friend and I created a student journal for Classics students to publish their works. (We had a crush on Ovid and Catullus). I think I've read all the books mentioned in the post and the comments. All the ancient ones. I can't wait until I can share them with my children.



Just for fun - here are my favourites.

Homer - The Iliad and The Odyssey (of course)

Virgil - The Aeneid (the quest, a guided hero, and Dido)

Ovid - everything (he's such a wag)

Catullus - poems (falling in love, being in love, rejected by love)

Petronius - The Satyricon (the anti-hero - more modern than today)

Apuleius - The Golden Ass (circular storytelling, robbers and thieves and a talking donkey)

Euripides - Medea (a wife's revenge), The Women of Troy (the spoils of war), The Bacchae, Iphigenia in Aulis (sacrifice of Agamemnon's daughter)

Appolonius of Rhodes - The Argonautica ( I love Hypsipyle)

Longus - Daphnis and Chloe (like a fairy tale)

Sophocles - Oedipus The King (the first recorded/extant use of dramatic irony), Antigone (she stand up for what she believes in)

Sappho - poetry (the first recorded/surviving use of the word 'bittersweet')

Aristophanes - Lysistrata (women protesting the war)


My favourite rewriting from ancient myth is Kliest's Penthesilea. (She was Queen of the Amazons.)

OK, I wish I had time to write about feminism in ancient classics. But while I'm writing my assignment for my Dip Ed, this has been a nice distraction to keep me keen to teach. So much fun.

Have you read and enjoyed any other these?

In what way are you a nerd?