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Michelangelo, The Creation of Adam, c.1512
The Odyssey · Book I
Homer · Robert Fagles, trans.
Sing to me of the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallowed heights of Troy.
Many cities of men he saw and learned their minds, many pains he suffered, heartsick on the open sea, fighting to save his life and bring his comrades home.
The reader, shaped to the work.
Epic, verse, drama, or Middle English — each form rendered the way it was meant to be read. No summaries, no abridgements, complete texts in Literata.
A scholar in the margin. Your marks beside his.
Tap any annotation to open Virgil's drawer — a scholarly note up top, a live chat at the bottom. Highlight what stops you, leave a note for your future self. Virgil is indigo; you are amber.
The Iliad · Book I
Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles
son of Peleus, that brought countless ills
upon the Achaeans.
“Son of Peleus” is a patronymic — an epithet identifying Achilles by his father. Homer uses patronymics to place heroes within their lineage and remind the audience of inherited glory or doom.
Walden · Thoreau
In every grain of sand I see the divine handwriting of a patient hand. The shoreline remembers the sea, and the sea forgets nothing.
Echoes Blake — to see a world in a grain of sand. Pull this for the essay.
Book I Trial
What literary device does Homer employ with the phrase 'wine-dark sea'?
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Over a thousand books. Every continent. 3,000 years.
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My Library · 6 books
The Odyssey
The Republic
Meditations
The Aeneid
Hamlet
Don Quixote
The canon, in chronological order
The Odyssey Circle
The Nobody trick is pure metis — cunning over strength.
But his hubris in revealing his name is the real lesson.
Exactly! His greatest strength is also his flaw.
Elena Petrakis
@elena
Reading Inferno, Canto V
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