Please play this song while you read this post. It might add (un)necessary points of emphasis and make you think my ideas are totally epic and revolutionary, especially if you read really, really, slow. 

Press play.

Setting: My dorm.

As I sat in my bed and read the first page of Ovid's Metamorphoses, I thought I had been mistaken, and instead of purchasing my Lit Hum books, had actually picked up some new weird new-age version of the bible. "...the whole of nature displayed but a single/face, which men have called Chaos: a crude unstructured mass..." (6-7). Seriously, Ovid? The whole of nature personified as the face of chaos? And then of course, we get to the flood where rocks are turning into people, and at that point, my chakras were totally not alined and I had to take a break. 

But anyway, it got me thinking... I mean this whole book is composed of stories that these people would have already known. This wasn't the Harry Potter series of its day. No one who read this book would be dying to know if Aeneus ever ends his wanderings. They know he'll eventually reach Italy (ohmygod the Aeneid was so long). So in this way, the book becomes more of a "it's about the journey, not the destination" (ohmygod more new age) thing, rather than some sort of M. Night Shamalama movie. As well, this style then begs the question: Why should we read this version above all other versions of this story? There are like 50,000 different versions of the fall of Troy. Including one with Orlando Bloom and Brad Pitt. Why should I care about this one? More importantly, why do I care about this one? Honestly, this is my favorite book that I've read so far in LitHum, but I can't put my finger on why.

Anyway.

There have been very few times this year when we have read something that is, in the modern sense, emotionally stirring. Most has been rather exciting in plot, but there haven't been many times where I've truly understood where a character is emotionally coming from. Of course, this is the thrill of plays like "Oedipus the King" —we don't know Creon's motives, when Jocasta knows the secret, and how moral Oedipus really is. We just use our intuitions to have intense scholarly arguments about these characters. We act similarly with epics like The Aeneid —we just don't know what Aeneus is feeling most of time. We know he's probably suppressing his emotions (like a good Roman should), but we never get to hear some heartfelt monologue about him say, leaving Dido. Of course, there are psychological complexities to every character, but we have totally no clue as to what they are, and are left with random one liners like Aeneus saying "Wow, life sucks. I want to die." (Oh my god imagine if he met Hamlet! Someone write a fanfiction!!) 

The few times during Lit Hum where we have heard passionate, resonating emotional passages, they have seemed almost out of place: think of Andromache's plea to Hektor, Dido's suicide, and Medea's self assuaging to kill her children. They were beautiful, but they stuck out in the text and because of that they were almost uncomfortable in their realness. We are used to something like, "Achilleus was sad. Much like a lion will be a lion and lion around..." rather than something poignant and emotive like, say Hamlet's monologue. (Hamlet and Aeneus! In the future! They meet up with the guy from The Catcher in the Rye! This story=$$$$) 

So this is my point: Metamorphoses seems to place emphasis on the journey, the emotional journey, rather than the simple plot. Take for instance, one of my favorite passages, Galatea's monologue in Book 13. While plot wise, this is just the creation story for the Acis river in Sicily, the writing and monologue is a passionate and psychologically compelling ode to being in love. You become emotionally involved as a reader with Galatea's youthful love and innocence, and so you still feel real sadness when the Cyclops kills Acis (trust me, it's like the Notebook all over again), even though you know it's going to happen. 

To me, this is the birth of real dramatic speech. Speech that brings psychological complexity and depth to characters, and instead of just promoting plot and one-sided character archetypes, speech that reveals characters' innermost feelings and motivations. Hopefully the music is totally epic right now, and you totally love me and think I'm a genius and want to bring me delicious food. (Read: delicious food.)

But anyway, I loved this book. I actually plan to read more of it. Does this make me a nerd? OH wait, I just realized I posted like 40 pictures of Jon Snow on my last blog post, and I'm currently playing a song that was written only for the Lord of the Rings video game. I don't know if I can get nerdier. Does this mean I get an A??