Public Reading of the Iliad
Friday, 15 March 2019
Next Friday 22 March 13:00-14:00 in the Edith Morley Quad the Classics Department will take part in an international festival of Latin and Greek. This is open to all students and colleagues who will join people across the world in reading a book of the Iliad out loud in a public place. This way, we shall be experiencing the Iliad in the ways that ancient Greeks might have done, and sharing our love of classical poetry and culture.
The Iliad is Homer's epic tale of the siege of Troy, and though bits of it might be slightly dry, Book 6, which we will be reading, includes the debate between the Greeks Sarpedon and Glaucus about the nature of heroism, and the Trojan warrior Hector takes a poignant farewell of his wife Andromache and their son Astyanax. Don't worry if your Ancient Greek is not up to much, as the whole idea is to read in a variety of languages! Across the world, people are reading in Ancient Greek, but also in English, French, German, Afrikaans, Portuguese, Mandarin, and many others.
Postgraduate students in the Classics Department are organising an exhibition about the Iliad and its many translations, which includes books on loan from Special Collections. This will be up later this month. Come and visit the Classics corridor (ground floor of Edith Morley) and the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology.
You can register to read here, more information can be found here on the Festival homepage or you can email Barbara Goff.