As Gertrude Stein once suggested to a young writer: Begin again and concentrate.
In my mind, the Blogging the Canon project I began nearly five years ago on this site was ongoing and lifelong. However, I never really explained to anyone that I intended from the start to jump around chronologically and geographically. So, when I posted about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and the Lusiads recently, I saw that as part of the project; perhaps, though, nobody else did.
I think this reflects my usually scattered “busy mind”, but I also suspect this hasn’t worked very well. So, I am going back to the beginning- the very beginning of literature. I will include links of texts I have covered and perhaps some further notes on them. I will also try to provide more images, “tables of contents”, and chronologies to make this all more coherent. As always, the posts themselves will be digressive, irreverent, and idiosyncratic. Students should not try to turn these in for class assignments if they don’t want to fail!
I will consider myself successful, then, if I can get us through the Bronze Age (roughly 2600- 1200 B.C.E.) by the end of this summer and then we can start moving on to the classical Chinese, Indian, and Greek texts. These are the texts I would like to have covered. Suggestions are always welcome, provided I can find decent translations:
The Debate between Bird and Fish
The Cannibal Hymn (Egyptian Pyramid Text)
The Shipwrecked Sailor
The Book of the Dead
and The Rig Veda, which just barely belongs in/brings us out of the Bronze Age.
If you fail to make it through Gilgamesh, may you never own anything of black alabaster!Report
This works well as a sort of all purpose threat I believe.Report
I’ve seen a lot of cussings on the internet, but when someone plays the alabaster card…Report
This makes me so very happy. (It may even inspire me to get back on the poetry horse.)Report
That would be awesome too.Report
It makes me a bit giddy too!
I would also love more of your poetry posts.Report
so much depends
upon
a long blog
posting
talking of old
stories
brimming with long
commentsReport
Who shall say you are not
the happy genius of this blog?Report
I must go look at the blog again, at the off the cuffs and OPs
And all I ask is a comment with a point that I can seizeReport
Poetry poorly played
Pretends
Wisdom wearily won.
Passion perfectly paid
Portends
Wishes woefully won.Report
Has anyone else ever read Samuel R. Delany’s Neveryona books? They’re fantasy (kind of, even though there’s no magic in them), and claim to be translations of the earliest surviving bit of writing in the world, in a script which would someday evolve into cuneiform. They’re also full of multiple levels of self-reference and other sorts of postmodern games. Neolithic awesome.Report
No, but that sounds pretty great!!Report
Rig Veda Here
I don’t see how you can “blog” it easily since it consists of so many individual hymns …
Anyways, good luck and enjoy proclaiming the manly deeds of Indra. He’s pretty badass.Report
Um .. no this is not a duplicate comment … mr software
Rig Veda Here
I don’t see how you can “blog” it easily since it consists of so many individual hymns …
Anyways, good luck and enjoy proclaiming the manly deeds of Indra. He’s pretty badass.Report
Oh, I know it’s nuts to try! I’ll probably cover a few individual hymns and leave it at that.Report
Seriously? WTF? I checked several times and I didn’t see the other one. D’oh.Report
Not sure what you mean. I’ve covered some of these and will be updating the links as I do more. I will actually link to the sacred texts page for Enuma Elish when I post about that in the near future.Report
You can pretty much find all this stuff at http://www.sacred-texts.com
It’s a freaking treasure trove. Too bad the creator died early.Report