@caterinevauban@lesekreis@boeken@bookstodon
I read Latin and Greek at school (Latin from age 11, Greek from 13, doing both at GCSE O Level and A Level), and carried on with them at undergraduate level (BA). The Greek I read at school was mostly Attic (plus Homer), but we were encouraged to be interested generally. So, doing some extra reading as exam preparation, I did a little bit of book 1 of Herodotus, which I enjoyed. (I enjoyed it even more when an Atticised version of a bit I'd already read turned up as an unseen translation exercise in one of my exams, making me look /really good/!)
I didn't study him closely either at school or university, although I kept coming back to him and occasionally writing essays on him. And I found (find!) him endlessly curious, sage about variation in human cultures and hugely engaging. There's a compassionate interest in his writing that chimes well for a folklorist.
@caterinevauban@lesekreis@boeken@bookstodon
Including @qmacro here because it's a reply to him, too. I was really taken with Ryszard Kapuściński's comment on Herodotus, which really gets at everything I get/have got from reading and re-reading him: 'The man who ceases to be astonished is hollow, possessed of an extinguished heart'
@paulcowdell@caterinevauban@lesekreis@boeken@bookstodon Goodness me Paul, your school and uni path is pretty much the same as mine. Latin from 11, Ancient Greek from 13, Latin, Ancient Greek & Ancient History at A-Level, read Classics at UCL where my modules remained very much language (rather than literature) focused, and included Philology and Sanskrit too.
And there's only one way to finish such a toot, with the phrase "FTW!"
@qmacro@lesekreis@boeken@bookstodon
I loved him as an undergraduate, and now constantly feel that if I'd only thought more about why I loved him I'd have ended up a folklorist a lot sooner.