Friday, October 23, 2015

Power, Conflict, and Wrath

He knew the things that were and the things that would be and the things that had been before.
~Homer

Aristoteles and Homer's bust by Rembrandt

Focusing on an impressive achievement by London's Almeida Theatre today. Over the course of one day in August, they had performers read Homer's Iliad in its entirety (18,255 lines of text -- it took 66 people to read it) to an "audience of more than 50,000 people across the world, watching online or in person at the Almeida and the British Museum." The event is available to watch online until 21 September 2016.

The Making of The Iliad | Almeida Theatre, London from Almeida Theatre on Vimeo.

Take a look:
Iliad the video: introduction
The whole thing


The Descent of Discord, Book XI

Jama Rattigan is the Poetry Friday round-up host.

P.S. Thinking about suffragettes a bit these days? Here's a throwback post with suffragette poems.

9 comments:

Diane Mayr said...

I've only read bits of Homer. Maybe it's time to delve into it!

jama said...

Leave it to the British -- impressive achievement indeed. Thanks for the Homer and British accent fix. Swooning especially over Ben Whishaw (voice of Paddington!). I've never read the Iliad, only the Odyssey, but in these voices it's certainly worth a listen.

Michelle Heidenrich Barnes said...

Cool! Wouldn't you just love to be a part of something like this? I'm floored just thinking about the administrative logistics of such an undertaking.

Unknown said...

I can't imagine such a feat. Definitely going to look at this later when not at school. Thanks, Tabatha.

Violet N. said...

Oh my, what an epic project! You do dig up the most exotic and interesting poetry-related things!

Robyn Hood Black said...

I'm with Viloet - you find the most amazing stuff! Thanks for sharing it with us. This is impressive....

Carol said...

Holy cow! I remember plowing through this book my freshman year in college. This would have been a great resource!

Anonymous said...

So very hard to imagine how this all came together. But it looked/sounded alive with passion and vitality.

Unknown said...

What an extravaganza! Special thanks for the opening Homer quote. Caught my attention because it so resembles one I'm familiar with (& quote often to myself (and others). Julian of Norwich: “All shall be well, and all shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well.” God bless you! THANKS!