I read ancient texts in the same way as I would modern texts. I focus on the plots, characters, descriptions, and so on. Even though I'm doing my MA in Classics, I'm still reading the ancient literature as just literature. I'm not thinking about the impact they made on our understanding of this or that, or how it shaped something or another. I'm just taking it as any other text. Oh and as hinted at by the title of the post, I read the Loeb Classical Library translation, by William H Race in 2009.
With that in mind, let's talk about Argonautica.
Written by Apollonius of Rhodes in around the 3rd century BCE, Argonaturica is an epic in the style of Homer. It follows Jason and the Argonauts, as they go on a quest to find the Golden Fleece.
The story itself was great; I loved it . Jason and his friends go on what they know to be a ridiculously impossible mission, and they constantly talk about how it is ridiculously impossible. It's a fun story, and although it took me quite some time to read it, I did enjoy it.
The characters are typical of a Greek epic. Jason is... well... If you have a more polite, academic way of saying "Jason is a bit of an arse" please let me know, mostly because... Jason is a bit of an arse. He whines and complains, and completely takes Medea for granted. He is the hero of the story in that he is heroic, but he is not a hero as I would see it. He does a few terrible things.
If you like books about chosen one quests, I think you might like this. Do go into it being aware that heroes are flawed in Greek myth, but otherwise I recommend it.
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