Dear fellow readers Our next Book Club selection takes us to the world of ancient Greek drama, and that most famous and beautiful of women, Helen. There is a new “heroized” version of the play in the Text Library, here, in html or PDF format. This tracks the Core Vocab words that we are familiar with from the HeroesX project and the Sourcebook, and is based on the translation by… Read more
A “heroized” edition of Euripides’ Helen We are pleased to share a revised translation of Euripides’ Helen that tracks Core Vocab words in the same way as the Sourcebook of Primary Texts in Translation used in HeroesX. You can find it here, in html or PDF format. This was the result of the third community-driven collaborative “heroization” project. The group revised a translation to indicate each and every occurrence of… Read more
A guest post by Timothy Banks When we first meet Helen in the Iliad the goddess Iris has led her to the Scaean Gates of Troy, where she looks out onto the battlefield. There she laments the actions that brought her to Troy and longs for home: “…would that I had chosen death rather than to have come here with your son, far from my bridal chamber, my friends, my… Read more
Finding Helen in texts is frustrating. Many contradictory facts may be encountered. Who was Helen? What about her life, her power, her birth, her beauty? Was she hated or was she loved? If we were to write a short biography, it might read like this: Helen was the daughter of Leda and Tyndareus/Zeus, and Clytemnestra, Castor and Polydeuces’ sister. Penelope was her cousin. She married Menelaos king of Sparta,… Read more
We were pleased to welcome Susan T. Edmunds for our Open House discussion, about weaving and the weaver as hero. The following videos would be helpful in starting the conversation. Revealing of past: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYgHRwlXDX8 The Art of Making a Tapestry: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIbu-dJuEh0 To prepare for this event you may like to read the following focus passages below. The event was recorded, and you can watch this discussion in the frame below,… Read more