Choose Your Fighter: Achilles as a Manly Archetype

Young Heretics

Spencer Klavan

Society & Culture, Education

4.9 • 4.5K Ratings

🗓️ 6 August 2024

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The game is on, Helen is abducted, and now it's time to gather the Greeks for war. There are lots of stories about how the Achaean forces made their way to Troy, and some of them--like the story of the Achilles heel--are permanently associated in the popular imagination with Homer's stories. But how many of them are actually in the Iliad? And what's Homer doing by making this version of Achilles the central focus of his story? This week we sift through the myths to get to know the man, and what he tells us about masculinity in the 21st century.

Check out our sponsor, the Ancient Language Institute (now offering Old English instruction!): https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

I maked this: "Zombie Paganism" at The New Jerusalem: https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com/p/essay-7-zombie-paganism

Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM

Subscribe to my new joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We have reached the part of the Iliad that is a little bit like the character select screen on a fighting game if you've ever played Tekken or Super Smash Brothers or something like that.
0:16.4	There's the part where you get all the different characters arrayed and you have to choose
0:20.5	the one that you think you work best as whose moves are going to work best
0:23.9	against your next opponent. There is a right answer and it's Mew 2. Oh no wait I'm sorry it's Achilles. you're This is the last week I have to encourage you, to cheer lead for you if you've been thinking about signing up for the Ancient Language Institute
1:05.3	Now is the time to sign up for their fall courses deadline for registration is August 10th
1:10.0	You yes you young heritage listener can get a discount by going to ancient language.com
1:15.1	slash young heretics. And there you will find a world of wonders, courses in
1:20.1	Latin, in Hebrew, in Greek, in old English, in all of these rich languages that I make use of all the time on the show
1:28.0	to get a deeper, fuller sense of the tradition that I want to share with you and convey to you.
1:33.2	You can have your own ownership over it.
1:35.0	You don't need me to be the only person, your only source of classical learning.
1:39.8	You yourself can get your hands dirty with these languages and Ancient Language Institute is the place to do it
1:44.8	because they get you reading early. You will be learning the grammar, you will be learning how
1:49.3	to speak these languages correctly, but you won't be forced to trudge through long memorization lists and
1:55.6	paradigms and grammar and vocabulary before you're allowed to set eyes on a line from Virgil.
2:02.2	The really cool thing about ALI is that even though they are
2:04.4	rigorous and they will teach you well, they'll teach you in your style. They will meet you at a place
2:09.7	that is intuitive for you, wherever you're at, whatever your previous experiences with language
2:14.6	learning, and in a way that conforms to how we know it works to learn living languages.
2:20.4	When you go to a course in French, you're going to be reading real French speaking real French.
2:24.0	They do the same thing with the ancient languages and they're so worth learning.
2:29.0	Now is the time you can get 10% off if you enter this secret promo code which is just my name, Spencer, SP-E-N-C-E-R at ancient language.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Spencer Klavan, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Spencer Klavan and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.