The great tradition of epic poetry that emanates from the Homeric tradition has been extraordinarily influential and continues to reverberate from the cinematic arts to literary culture. The ongoing power of this tradition continues on the UGA campus as well with Homerathon 2019.
In 2016, the classics department in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences organized Homerathon, in which faculty, college and high school students, administrators, alumni, local officials, journalists and musicians joined in a two-day reading of the entire text of Homer’s Odyssey. From a podium in front of the Main Library on North Campus, volunteer readers from all over North Georgia collaborated to make the event a great success.
This year, the classics department will reprise the event in the same location April 8 and April 9 with a reading of the Iliad, Homer’s monument to the brutalizing effects of war and the sparks of light that nevertheless can emerge even in the darkest times.
Each volunteer will be assigned about 150 lines of Stanley Lombardo’s Iliad translation (with a pronunciation guide). Reading will commence at 9 a.m. both days and go until about 5 p.m.
