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"Here are your tortured poets. All from Mahmoud Darwish to Dr. Refat Alareer to Khaled Juma, these are tortured poets. Tortured by longing for a home they can never return to, tortured by the world they were born to for BEING BORN. Palestine, home to the tortured poets department." [@/folkoftheshelf on X. April 20th, 2024.]

#palestine #poetry

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“People have always been people” is my favourite part of anthropology

People graffitid your mum jokes on the walls of Pompeii

Junior monks wrote complaints into their copied manuscripts

The Aborigines passed down 10,000 year old oral histories in campfire stories

Children played with little rolling ox toys in Mughal India

Indigenous Americans hurled balls around courts in games like ones we still play

Bored Roman soldiers carved dicks on Hadrian’s wall

Vikings climbed to very high places in distant countries just to carve their names there

Women in ancient Egypt sang songs making fun of their husbands while they worked

Victorian schoolgirls embroidered their hatred of stitching into their samplers

People have always been people, and it is my favourite thing

#thesis statement #humans #anima #classics #ancient things

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So we all know that Tumblr is US-centric. But to what degree? (and can we skew the results of this poll by posting it at a time where they should be asleep?)

Reblog to increase sample size!

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lets all die in battle

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the dev patel girlies have KNOWN how hot he is for years and years but the little giggle I heard from a grown man seated next to me when he took his shirt off in monkey man tells me it's truly over for everyone else. god bless

#dev patel

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IM ON MY KNEES IM SHAKING IM FROTHING AT THE MOUTH GOD IS GOOD

#omfg is 2024 the year I become an Odysseus girlie?? #currently spending the semester translating the last three books of the odyssey and well….. #hades ii #hades game #odysseus #classics #does this mean we’re going to get Penelope????????????? #please 🙌

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HAPPENING NOW: passover seder from our comrades in columbia's liberated zone/gaza solidarity encampment. this encampment is a profoundly religious space. we've seen muslim protesters praying multiple times a day, a christian communion was held, and multiple jewish prayers/celebrations have taken place. solidarity is a beautiful thing, palestine will be free.🖤🇵🇸

#palestine #columbia

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Latin Literature Tournament - Round 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Cicero Propaganda:

This is literally the Cicero Website! You're gonna be on Classics Tumblr and not vote for him??

He saved the republic, you know

All kidding aside, he genuinely wrote some of the most marvelous prose in the Latin language

Martial Propaganda:

Dude basically invented the modern epigram

Was a Huge Bitch and could sling trash talk like no other. A funnier motherfucker you will never meet

Additional propaganda from his dear friend Pliny

#wait fuck I clicked wrong by accident #fuck cicero #I will never support cicero #all my homies hate cicero #jk it’s just me but UGHhh #we had a final paper on the question ‘why did the republic fall?’ and I said it was Cicero’s fault #mostly to argue a silly point for the fun and challenge of it #but like honestly…. fuck Cicero #cicero #classics

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Latin Literature Tournament - Round 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Pliny Propaganda:

His description of Vesuvius is so fucking cool and important, you guys. It's so cool that "Plinian eruptions" are a thing in volcanology

He writes some neat descriptions of gardens and private horticulture, so he's an important source on Roman aesthetics of domestic design

His letters really are bangers. I love his friendship with Tacitus, and the ghost stories are so fucking fun

Juvenal Propaganda:

I love reading and fighting Juvenal. He is such an asshole and so full of shit (and his poems really are a blast)

That said the man sure can turn a phrase. Bread and circuses, anyone?

Is that a farrago in your libellus or are you just happy to see me

#agree with the Pliny propaganda here 10/10 #classics #Pliny

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Latin Literature Tournament - Round 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Seneca the Younger Propaganda:

Seneca my chronically ill beloved...

His tragedies are the rawest, most gut-wrenching, and visceral pieces in pre-modern drama. His Oedipus is so fucking gnarly and it's my favorite thing ever written

I think he's super underrated as an innovator of form and genre. Between his Epistulae Morales and his tragic corpus, he was really just fucking around in the coolest way

Jerome Propaganda:

While it gets kinda paraphrastic, the Vulgate a really cool work in the history of translation, and its simple style is really clear and balanced

Describes the occurrence and cure of a sever vitamin A deficiency in the Life of Saint Hilarion, which is pretty fucking cool

Worked on onomastica, which would frankly be my personal hell, but it shows that he was brave and had the patience of, well, a saint

#the most viscerally disturbed I’ve ever been by a piece of literature #translating *that* scene in Thyestes #genuinely stomach-turning #I say this with highest praise it was so skillfully and vividly done #honestly some 10/10 tragedies #Phaedra?? oh my god #for that alone though because the stoic philosophy is a snooze #Seneca #classics

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Latin Literature Tournament - Round 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Plautus Propaganda:

This is some of the oldest Latin we have, giving us insights into both archaic and colloquial Latin

His writing is really cleverly idiosyncratic and vibrant, with a lot of fun wordplay and neologisms

Plautus' influence on subsequent comedy can't be overstated--commedia dell'arte, Shakespeare, early sitcoms, it's all just Plautus

Seneca the Elder Propaganda:

Father of my boy Seneca the Younger, who slaps severely

Really pedagogically important collections of declamations, controversiae, and suasoriae

Wrote a strong critique of the mannerist turn in Latin literature, which relied on more grand, sweeping, and visceral poetic effects, in comparison to the more classically elegent Latin of the previous generation

#I love Plautus dearly and one of our comedians has got to make it through #Plautus was the first time I felt like I could read Latin with any degree of fluidity #like actually just read it and it translate it #what a glorious and buoyant feeling #that semester with the amphitruo has some of my favorite memories from college #we performed an abridged version of it for the dept saturnalia #hilarious and legendary with homemade paper mache masks included #and in our 6 person class we had three people with the same birthday and three people who had a twin #which is just wildly and magically improbable #anyway! joy #classics #plautus

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Latin Literature Tournament - Round 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Statius Propaganda:

The Silvae have a cool improvisational tone that gives them a smooth vibe

In the Thebaid, takes a neat tack about the structuring of a single story by telling it in more of an Ovidian, episodic way than telling it as a single narrative

Okay Ima keep it real with you chief, I fucking hate Statius. I can say nothing more positive about him. I will gladly publish any propaganda other people have for him, but I simply can't talk him up any more than I have up to this point, I'm sorry :(

Tibullus Propaganda

The poorest little meow-meow of Latin elegy, while all of his lovers are bad bitches

He was so wonderfully bisexual. Wrote the longest poetic project about homosexuality in Latin lit, which is pretty lit

His style is really graceful and smooth, making for soft, easy reading

#oh I haven’t read any tibullus and only very little Statius in Latin #but Statius has baller subject matter and I wish we had more of it #statius #classics

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Latin Literature Tournament - Round 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Persius Propaganda:

When it comes to satire, he's way more earnest and genuine than Juvenal, who reads like a Fox and Friends special

Discusses Stoic themes in a way that makes for a really important point of comparison for Seneca

Lucan loved him

Catullus Propaganda:

When I was teaching Latin, one of my 8th grad students said of Catullus "He's the worst man who ever lived. I love him."

The only Roman writer to talk about clit envy

Fucking loved Sappho, so you know he has good taste

#I mean #just read the propaganda for Catullus here the choice is clear #my Latin prof freshman year of college had us read all his filthiest poems (after we’d read only his non-filthy poems in high school) #and forced me to say the word c*nt out loud in class when I tried to say vulva LOL #because the Latin word was a dirty slang word too #how can one vote against that formative memory!! #classics #catullus

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Latin Literature Tournament - Round 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Suetonius Propaganda

I say this with all love and affection--Suetonius is so full of shit. Like reading a magazine in the grocery impulse aisle, in the best possible way

Has very cool intratextual bits and ring structures

He runs on pure vibes, and honestly I love this for him

Vergil Propaganda:

The vates himself, everyone. The poet so good that the Church was like "okay yeah this one magical pagan can stay"

The Fourth Eclogue is such a weird little delight. Is it about the children of Antony? Augustus? Is it a prediction of the birth of Christ? Is it somehow, as I heard one professor suggest for some reason, about Gallus? The possibilities are endless

Are you going to vote against the world-shattering masterpiece that is the Aeneid?

Side note, if you spell it "Virgil" you are my enemy

#I haven’t looked at the bracket yet buttttt it will be very interesting if this ends up vergil v ovid #can’t wait to see this play out!! #classics #vergil

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Latin Literature Tournament - Round 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Lucretius Propaganda:

His description of atomism is pretty damn accurate for an ancient Roman poet with literally no clue what the fuck he's talking

In this house we love Epicureanism

Carmina sublimis tunc sunt peritura Lucreti / exitio terras cum dabit una dies

Petronius Propaganda

You really can't go wrong with the Cena Trimalchionis--crazy food, astrology, werewolves...there's really something for everyone

When Nero ordered him to commit suicide, through a sumptuous party about it and broke all his expensive stuff so Nero couldn't take it. Queen Shit

Part Menippean satire, part Greek novel: a genuinely Wild fucking combo that makes one of the weirdest and coolest pieces of Latin prose out there

#this one is tough but I love de rerum natura with my entire soul so it had to be lucretius #knowledge and rationalism and beauty give us light in the face of fear and ignorance and darkness…. #the only ancient philosophy I can actually kind of get behind #and written in the most gorgeous (and challenging!) latin #mmm #lucretius #classics

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Latin Literature Tournament - Round 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Claudian Propaganda:

Augustine called him the "adversary of the name of Christ," which is kinda metal if we're being honest

He easily has the most elegant style of late antiquity

The In Eutropium is a master class in the panegyric/invective dichotomy, in case you ever need to hype up your mutual while dragging your enemies for filth

Ovid Propaganda:

Where do I even begin...the brilliant style? The generic versatility? The innovations of narrative and mythographical traditions? The complicated dynamics of gender and sexuality? There is So Much

The Metamorphoses is lowkey why I'm trans--his writing of gender transition actually really reflects modern conceptualizations of queer times (ask me about my SCS paper for this year)

Ovid is a terrible, terrible man and I love him

#lol ovid sweep no surprise here!! #classics #ovid

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Latin Literature Tournament - Round 1

Propaganda under the cut!

Ammianus Propaganda:

Enjoy "Fingers in His Lacunae Sunday"? Well, do I have the text for you

The ethnographies in Ammianus are so fucking neat--he's very interested in the human element, especially in military history

Super cool and accurate description of the 365 Crete Earthquake

Caesar Propaganda

None of these other motherfuckers have a Shakespeare play written about them, do they?

He's everyone's first Latin prose! Accessible, nostalgic, and crisp

The ethnography of the Druids in Book 6 fucking slaps

#hard not to go with caesar #for all his flaws there is very little cooler as an early Latin student than reading Caesar’s accounts of his exploits in his own words #everyone knows who Julius Caesar is growing up and then to have his own mind at your fingertips? profound. exquisite. addictive. #classics #julius caesar