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THIS is my Greek Love
16 years ago
First, please take a look at this image.
I've done this on a t-shirt as a nice big "F*** YOU" to myMasterworks of Western Lit pre-1500 Older Deader White Guys professor, who is an old, almost-dead white guy himself. Seriously, I think the poor guy's gonna keel over on us one day. Anyway, instead of just ignoring the whole Patroclus/Achilles relationship like a lot of professors will if they're uncomfortable with the implications or just don't want to make a point of it or whatever, this guy states outright that "They couldn't be gay because Homer himself wasn't gay. That's completely a construct of 5th century Athens." Add in a little "la-la-la not listening" every time anyone in class even asked about Patroclus's part in somehow calming the rage of a demigod, or instigating grief so terrible it destroyed half a battlefield when unleashed.
Okay, first off, we don't even know if Homer was one guy or not. There's actually a good argument that "Homer" is just a name ascribed to a written version from the 8th century of a long-held oral tradition of singer-poets. Therefore, being a conglomeration of centuries worth of ideas and mores, it is hard to say that none of those bards was ever "not gay" especially since such rigid ideas about human sexuality have only been around for the last century-and-a-half or so.
True, nothing's explicitly stated in the text and there's no author's notes or anything with the Iliad or the Odyssey saying one way or the other, but the 5th-Century Athenians were doing exactly the same thing we're doing, namely reading/performing this according to the context of their own time/culture, which was probably a lot closer to whatever culture the mythology/legends that make up the tales of the Trojan War stems from. But its clearly not just an "Athenian construct" because the men of Athens themselves were arguing whether or not the two were sexually related or just really good friends, and if the socially acceptable pederasty was going on or the military "Theban Band"-type shenanigans, who was on top or if they switched. There had to be some sort of tradition built up around the idea. It wasn't like it just suddenly exploded onto the scene with the advent of democracy or anything.
In fact they argued for centuries. They wrote plays, and treatises, and cattily edited each others arguments to suit their needs. Plato had one of his (not characters exactly) fanboy over them being together in his Symposium. Yanno, fandom didn't get this epic again until the Aeneid.
Alexander and Hephastion worshiped Achilles and Patroclus at their shared grave on the way to conquer the world.
Alexander.
~~~~
Anyway, base image is the one you find absolutely everywhere if you type in 'Achilles', ' Patroclus', or any combination of their names in a search engine.
The font is "Ancient Geek" from over on dafont, though it's a bit skewed to work with the image.
The quote at the bottom is actually on the back of the shirt. Its from cleolinda's "Troy in 15 Minutes" over here and if you like that, you might like Sarah Rees Brennan's A Story of "True Love and Idiocy:Troy, A Parody" Both are hilarious, and have kept me and my friends sane through long hours of boring Old Dead White Guys.
If you would like to use this anywhere (icons, shirts, the like) go ahead. I'd like if you commented, so I know you liked it enough to use it though. If you'd like a high res file or a different background, just ask.
I've done this on a t-shirt as a nice big "F*** YOU" to my
Okay, first off, we don't even know if Homer was one guy or not. There's actually a good argument that "Homer" is just a name ascribed to a written version from the 8th century of a long-held oral tradition of singer-poets. Therefore, being a conglomeration of centuries worth of ideas and mores, it is hard to say that none of those bards was ever "not gay" especially since such rigid ideas about human sexuality have only been around for the last century-and-a-half or so.
True, nothing's explicitly stated in the text and there's no author's notes or anything with the Iliad or the Odyssey saying one way or the other, but the 5th-Century Athenians were doing exactly the same thing we're doing, namely reading/performing this according to the context of their own time/culture, which was probably a lot closer to whatever culture the mythology/legends that make up the tales of the Trojan War stems from. But its clearly not just an "Athenian construct" because the men of Athens themselves were arguing whether or not the two were sexually related or just really good friends, and if the socially acceptable pederasty was going on or the military "Theban Band"-type shenanigans, who was on top or if they switched. There had to be some sort of tradition built up around the idea. It wasn't like it just suddenly exploded onto the scene with the advent of democracy or anything.
In fact they argued for centuries. They wrote plays, and treatises, and cattily edited each others arguments to suit their needs. Plato had one of his (not characters exactly) fanboy over them being together in his Symposium. Yanno, fandom didn't get this epic again until the Aeneid.
Alexander and Hephastion worshiped Achilles and Patroclus at their shared grave on the way to conquer the world.
Alexander.
~~~~
Anyway, base image is the one you find absolutely everywhere if you type in 'Achilles', ' Patroclus', or any combination of their names in a search engine.
The font is "Ancient Geek" from over on dafont, though it's a bit skewed to work with the image.
The quote at the bottom is actually on the back of the shirt. Its from cleolinda's "Troy in 15 Minutes" over here and if you like that, you might like Sarah Rees Brennan's A Story of "True Love and Idiocy:Troy, A Parody" Both are hilarious, and have kept me and my friends sane through long hours of boring Old Dead White Guys.
If you would like to use this anywhere (icons, shirts, the like) go ahead. I'd like if you commented, so I know you liked it enough to use it though. If you'd like a high res file or a different background, just ask.
