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From: john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley)
Newsgroups: net.books
Subject: Re: greek myths books
Message-ID: <545@cisden.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 11-Mar-86 11:09:45 EST
Article-I.D.: cisden.545
Posted: Tue Mar 11 11:09:45 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Mar-86 08:12:29 EST
References: <3185@sdcc3.UUCP>
Reply-To: john@cisden.UUCP (John Woolley)
Organization: ConTel Information Systems, Denver
Lines: 60
Keywords: mythology

In article <3185@sdcc3.UUCP> nancy@sdcc3.UUCP (Nancy ) writes:
>Does anyone know any good books about the Greek Myths?
>I love reading the stories ...

Me, too.  Here are some of my very favourites.  I won't include Roman
things, but some of them are exquisite.  All of these can be found in
English.  This is nothing like a complete list.

	Homer		_Iliad_ and _Odyssey_, 2 very different books, best
			sellers for 2700 years.  John Dryden's translation
			is classic, and very good.  
	Hesiod		_Works_and_Days_ and _Theogony_ (not _Theogony_and_
			Theecstasy_, which is very different).  Penguin has
			a good translation out, by whom I don't remember.
	Aeschylus	If a dramatic treatment of Greek myths appeals, here
	Sophocles	are the only Greek dramatists whose work has come
	Euripides	down to us.  Really good if you like these things.
	Appolonius Rhodius
			_The_Argonautica_ (a.k.a. _The_Voyage_of_Argo_), a
			really great epic about Jason and company.  Again,
			Penguin's version is fine.
	Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso)
			_Metamorphoses_.  Yeah, I know he's a Roman, but I
			couldn't resist.  You shouldn't, either. 
	Virgil (Publius Virgilius Maro)
			_Aeneid_.  (Well, they start in Greece ...)  The recent
			translation by Fitzgerald is really good, but I still
			like Dryden's best.
	Seneca		A philosopher, but he wrote plays modelled in part on
			the old Greek drama, and using Greek material.  _Medea_
			is very good.
	The Pearl Poet	_Sir_Orfeo_.  This is an exquisite Middle English poem
			about Orpheus.  The same author's _Sir_Gawain_and_the_
			_Greene_Knight_ is one of the finest of all English
			poems.  These are hard (but possible) to read in the
			original, because they're in a strange dialect, but
			J.R.R. Tolkien of happy memory translated them very
			well into Modern English.
	G. Chaucer	_Troilus_and_Criseyde_.  To my mind, better than
	W. Shakespeare	_Troilus_and_Cressida_, which is still real good.  It
			really is worth the effort -- I guarantee it, money
			back -- to read Chaucer in Middle English.  He's one
			of our very greatest poets.  (Like second best.)
	J.-B. Racine	Great French dramatist, wrote plays on Greek mythic
			themes.  In particular I recommend _Phaedra_ and
			_Iphigenia_, but all his stuff's good.  If you read
			French, do it in this case.
	T. Bulfinch	_The_Age_of_Fable_.  This has two companion volumes
			that aren't about Greece at all, but are good.  The
			whole set bears the title _Bulfinch's_Mythology_.
	C. S. Lewis	_Till_We_Have_Faces_.  This is Cupid and Psyche, told
			in a fairly realistic way from the viewpoint of
			Psyche's ugly sister.  A *really wonderful* book.

I'm sure that as soon as I post this I'll think of five more.  Oh, well.
Good reading!
-- 
				Peace and Good!,
				      Fr. John Woolley
"Compared to what I have seen, all that I have written is straw." -- St. Thomas