David's Reviews > Agamemnon

Reading the ancient Greeks is as essential as reading Shakespeare, the Bible, and other works that are revered in our canon of great works of the Western world. Why modern readers don't appreciate this fact I ascribe to poor education. It is so obvious to me that I regret my own gaps of knowledge in the classics, but I am aghast at how too many young people in my opinion are wholly bereft of curiosity regarding the ancient playwrights, poets, philosophers, etc. from millennia past. What will they build on? I ascribe this to poor education of their educators as well.

By education I am referring to the liberal arts pooh-poohed by many in our materialistic culture. This pressure of making a buck to ensure security and prestige over depth of mind has made a generation (maybe several generations) of people in democracies unable or unwilling to elect wise leaders. Instead, we have now giggling, raunchy, vapid, spoiled autocrats who act like voracious kraken sucking up all precious things.

Begin with Homer's the Iliad and the Odyssey, then Aeschylus and the other two playwrights--Sophocles, Euripides. Or, maybe begin with the Old Testament, then the New and go to the Greeks from there.