# Classical Literature, pre-reading, and you **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** books-writing-myths\ **Created:** [September 10, 2026, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-literature-pre-reading-and-you/1032972 "2026-09-10T19:50:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2026, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-literature-pre-reading-and-you/1032972/1 "2026-09-10T19:50:20Z")
I was toying around with rebuilding my medieval European lit collection, but after a little time it was clear that to truly ‘get it’ I would need to get at least some Ovid under my belt, at least Metamorphoses. Great, but not yet. Stuff builds on stuff. Medieval lit wants knowledge of Virgil/Aeneid in addition to the ancient mythology, and Virgil wants knowledge of Homer. I read the Iliad, sort of, like 40 years ago. I feel like I may have missed much of what was there to be found, either because I was not a great reader or because the sands of time have smoothed over those parts of my brain. As I stare at my new Iliad & Odyssey in preparation for launching a Homerfest in my head, I am wondering if there is ‘prereading’ (like The Silmarillion → LOTR) I should do that would be useful. I’ve got The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology so that should help with some cultural references, but I’m wondering if there is anything else I should consider. Maybe something Homer would have been familiar with (so, not Herodotus). Suggestions? Bonus Poll: I am given to understand Virgil/Aeneid should be understood as Roman propaganda, an epic modeled after Homer’s style, but not even ostensibly a “true story”. Would I be wrong to pass it by, but for the European works that looked to it? Or is it a good tale in and of itself, and I should just relax? ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [September 10, 2026, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-literature-pre-reading-and-you/1032972/2 "2026-09-10T20:05:12Z")
The title says ‘classical lit, pre-reading, and you’ but the post seems very specific to what you plan to read. I’m going to answer the title. I read _Ulysses_ every couple of years, and there’s regular discussion of whether pre-reading any of the following is necessary: the Odyssey, Hamlet, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The short answer from my perspective is no, BUT, they do inform the reading of the main text, and even surveying some of the themes of those three will change your reading of _Ulysses_. And yet…they aren’t necessary, because it can still be a good experience without them. It really comes down to how much time you want to invest. My advice on _Ulysses_ is always to read summaries of Hamlet and the Odyssey and skip the portrait, and spend the rest of the time on the main text. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2026, 11:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-literature-pre-reading-and-you/1032972/3 "2026-09-11T11:09:34Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > As I stare at my new Iliad & Odyssey in preparation for launching a Homerfest in my head, I am wondering if there is ‘prereading’ (like The Silmarillion → LOTR) I should do that would be useful. I’ve got The Routledge Handbook of Greek Mythology so that should help with some cultural references, but I’m wondering if there is anything else I should consider. Maybe something Homer would have been familiar with (so, not Herodotus). Suggestions? Well, being that Homer’s work is the oldest Greek literature we have, it’s hard to come up with anything older. Actually, Hesiod is about as old as Homer. So you _could_ read his _Works and Days_ and the _Theogony_. Reading both of these ought to convince you that the same guy didn’t really write both of them. There’s also the fragment called _The Shield of Hercules_, which i found pretty useful for my book _Medusa_, but which you might find boring. Tastes vary. There’s also a collection of poems traditionally attributed to Homer, but which nobody nowadays thinks he wrote, all grouped together as _Homerica_. The Loeb Classical Library thoughtfully collected all these in one book. Don’t read later poets if you’re trying to make sense of Homer, especially Ovid, who felt perfectly fine with screwing around with mythology, so he makes the horrible man-eating Scylla from The Odyssey into a transformed maiden, Or Apollodorus, who i think of as a modern-day comics geek who tries to make all of mythology logically consistent, and gets flustered when he Greek literary equivalent of Crisis on Infinite Worlds happens. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 11, 2026, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-literature-pre-reading-and-you/1032972/4 "2026-09-11T23:55:10Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > Don’t read later poets if you’re trying to make sense of Homer, especially Ovid, who felt perfectly fine with screwing around with mythology, As Ovid himself put it, “I prate of ancient poets’ monstrous lies”. But hey, some of his stuff is still pretty good, so long as you recognize that he doesn’t care about any sort of continuity with anyone else’s versions of the myths. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2026, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-literature-pre-reading-and-you/1032972/5 "2026-09-12T01:48:27Z")
I was unaware Ovid was sketch. Is he charlatan material, or does he just take the occasional liberty? I seem to recall, as more people were becoming literate in Europe, his work being expected reading. I underserstand there is not always correlation between the scholarly and the popular, is Ovid a case of that? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [September 12, 2026, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-literature-pre-reading-and-you/1032972/6 "2026-09-12T12:39:01Z")
He’s not bad, in any sense of the word. He just doesn’t feel obligated to follow all of what came before. Don’t read him if your goal is to understand the myths in their standard, generally-accepted form. Go ahead and read him if your goal is anything other than that. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2026, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-literature-pre-reading-and-you/1032972/7 "2026-09-15T00:34:40Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > I was unaware Ovid was sketch. Is he charlatan material, or does he just take the occasional liberty? I seem to recall, as more people were becoming literate in Europe, his work being expected reading. I underserstand there is not always correlation between the scholarly and the popular, is Ovid a case of that? Ovid is also a much better writer than, say, Apollodorus. But his liberties are more than just “occasional”. That story about Medusa originally being a beautiful woman who was turned into a monster by Athena because Poseidon raped her in his temple? It’s original with him. Prior to that, Medusa was a monster from birth, like her sisters. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2026, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-literature-pre-reading-and-you/1032972/8 "2026-09-15T01:02:07Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Bonus Poll: I am given to understand Virgil/Aeneid should be understood as Roman propaganda, an epic modeled after Homer’s style, but not even ostensibly a “true story”. Would I be wrong to pass it by, but for the European works that looked to it? Or is it a good tale in and of itself, and I should just relax? Nah, the Aeneid is quite enjoyable in its own right, besides being fun Imperial Roman Homer fanfic. It is also, as the old lady remarked of _Hamlet_, just chock-full of quotations, of which _Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes_ and _Facilis descensus Averno_ (about the Greeks bearing gifts and the easy road to hell, respectively) are among the most famous. But definitely do the OG Homeric epics first. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2026, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/classical-literature-pre-reading-and-you/1032972/9 "2026-09-15T11:40:31Z")
Ovid isn’t anywhere near as bad as Dionysius Skytobrachion (“Dionysius Leather-Arm”), who completely and painfully re-arranged mythology for his stories > **[Dionysius Scytobrachion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysius_Scytobrachion)** > > Dionysius Scytobrachion (Ancient Greek: Διονύσιος ὁ Σκυτοβραχίων) (Scytobrachion meaning 'leather arm'), also known as Dionysius of Mytilene (the capital of Lesbos), was the author of a series of stories set in the region now known as Libya. His works depicted the Olympian gods as mortals from a distant past, and subjects included the Amazons, Alexander the Great, and the Argonauts. The latter stories are included a six-book work known as the Argonautica, in which the captain of the Argo is Hercu...