3 Homer

In an 1886 letter to his brother, Anton Chekhov delivered some advice about truthfulness in writing. "Don't invent sufferings you have not experienced," he wrote, "and don't paint pictures you have not seen--for a lie in a story is much more boring than a lie in conversation." In ...  Show more

Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961) was one of the most famous American writers of the twentieth century. His plain, economical prose style--inspired by journalism and the King James Bible, with an assist from the Cezannes he viewed in Gertrude Stein’s apartment--became a hallmark of mo ...  Show more

The Iliad and the Odyssey are two of the world’s most famous poems. But who was their author, Homer, and how have his name and poems survived so long, preserved for almost 3 millennia?

In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan is joined once again by author, classicis ...

Homeric Hymns are beautiful and detailed and so, so ancient... The two Homeric Hymns to Apollo tell the story of his birth and the founding of the Oracle at Delphi.This is not a standard narrative story episode, it's simply a bonus reading of an epic. For regular episodes look fo ...  Show more

Odysseus and his men escape from Scylla and Charybdis: the final dramatic episode before a whole new type of dramatic episodes. CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be w ...  Show more

Odysseus is fed up, it's time for the suitors to die. CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Sources: The Odyssey, translated by Emil ...  Show more