Peter MeineckRezensionen

This is a series of fourteen lectures by Professor Meineck. The narrator sounds like the Geico gecko. Emphasis is placed on history and examine texts from the era, which include mythology. It was educational but not highly interesting.½

I liked that this course wasn't the typical focus on the mythic gods of the Romans but more about the origins of their adoption of their gods as well as the mythologies of the seven kings like Coriolanus and the story of Romulus and Remus.

This course was a great systematic look at the myths of the Greeks using classical texts. Easy to understand, yet not just simple "storytelling".

This course was a great systematic look at the myths of the Greeks using classical texts. Easy to understand, yet not just simple "storytelling".

I liked that this course wasn't the typical focus on the mythic gods of the Romans but more about the origins of their adoption of their gods as well as the mythologies of the seven kings like Coriolanus and the story of Romulus and Remus.

I admit that my low rating is mostly on my irritation with what I had hoped it contained and by the time I relaxed and went with the material it did contain it was too late; I was terminally bored. It contains a look at how the Roman culture integrated myths and/or adjusted their cultural mythos with lies and manipulation, which reminded me too much of f*x. The saving grace was the last chapter which shows how the Roman myths have carried over into our own culture and history.

Modern Scholar is one of my favorite imprints from Recorded Books (I am sad that they are discontinuing it). I listened to this with my 12 year old daughter to help her plan for a project she is doing for one of her classes. I learned quite a bit that was new to me (re-learned items that I had evidently learned incorrectly in the past) and my daughter got some great notes for her project. It's not a stuffy, boring lecture. Meineck does a great job of keeping things upbeat and highlighting the more interesting aspects.

Is this good for a doctoral dissertation on the intricacies of Greek Mythology? Absolutely not - but it's not intended to be. Simply interesting enrichment

One of my favorite things about the Modern Scholar series is that the professors who give the lectures are free to enjoy their subject matter. There are no bewildered and deliberately apathetic college students to compete for the space in which I wish to bask in the joy that is learning and the endless satisfaction that comes with the greater understanding of context and willingness to define perspective as a individual thing, no matter how connected to another community that thing is.

The Romans are much maligned, and in some ways deservedly, but the thing that I've never really understood is the relationship between Romans and their mythology. They were innovators in so much, why did they have to 'steal' the Greek gods and rename them and tell different stories about them? Why didn't they have their own gods?

While Peter Meineck does not really answer that last question (mostly, I suspect, because no one asked him. ahem.) he does give air to the individual nature of Roman myths, the gods and the relationship of the people to those gods and to those myths. These are not straightforward, but they are very very familiar, especially when put next to the creation myths of any government or cultural movement. We deify celebrities and tell stories about them that exemplify what we think are the most admirable of our own qualities whether the event ever occurred or was a creation of the media or accident.

I mention joy, because it is obvious that Dr. Meineck cares, in an responsible and intellectual and human way about these stories and the roles that they have played in history and in our own lives today. He is an enjoyable lecturer and he is well organized and delightful to listen to. I heard the whole series twice in one week, I enjoyed it so much.

A thing which it was very easy to do - because I had the space and time in which to do it.