Talk:The Song of Achilles

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 07:07, 18 March 2021 (UTC)

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Madeline Miller

• ... that when commenting on her decision to depict Achilles and Patroclus as lovers in her novel The Song of Achilles, author Madeline Miller (pictured) remarked that "I stole it from Plato"? Source: Los Angeles Times
  • ALT1:... that author Madeline Miller (pictured) discarded a completed manuscript of her novel The Song of Achilles that took her five years to write, and took a total of ten years to finish the novel? Source: WSJ

• Reviewed: Saks Fifth Avenue flagship store
• Comment: Article is a 5x expansion of material split from Madeline Miller.

5x expanded by Morgan695 (talk). Self-nominated at 01:10, 27 February 2021 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Adequate sourcing: Neutral: Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:

Hook eligibility:

• Cited:
• Interesting:
• Other problems:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Much more than five times expanded today, and all points check out. Image is licensed, ready to go. Both hooks are cited and interesting, but in my humble opinion the first is very hooky and ALT1 less so. (I suggest taking out the words “when commenting”, as they add nothing.) Moonraker (talk) 17:05, 27 February 2021 (UTC)

"Historical inaccuracies"

@Anglosophy: Hi, please review WP:NPOV and WP:CITE before making further edits to this page. Simply saying "This book is inaccurate, Source: Plato's Symposium" is not sufficient. You need to back up your claims with a neutral, reliable, third-party source, e.g. a book review or a scholarly article on this specific topic. In any case, I'm not sure the claim you're trying to make even bears mentioning in this article; Achilles and Patroclus are characters that have been interpreted in many ways across innumerate mediums, and claiming Miller's interpretation of a character from mythology is "historically inaccurate" feels like an odd claim to make. Morgan695 (talk) 06:06, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

@Morgan695 It is a problem when the author declared she 'stole it' from Plato and in the meantime negating the portrayal of Achilles and Patroclus by Plato himself. The original source proves neutral, reliable and sufficient enough to define the portrayal of the author as inaccurate (in accordance to Plato and Homer).

See Symposium, 108a. He also died, and died for his sake. Aeschylus actually talks nonsensewhen he asserts that it was Achilles who was the lover of Patroclus: Achilles was not only more beautiful than Patroclus but also more beautiful than all the rest of the heroes, and still beardless; and accordingto Homer he was much younger. (Symposium, 108a) Anglosophy (talk) 09:20, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

Again, per WP:CITE, you need to back up your claims with a neutral, reliable, third-party source. A claim like The book is marked by major historical inaccuracies needs to be attributed to a reliable source. (It also seems odd to say that a story based on mythology is "historically" inaccurate.) Morgan695 (talk) 15:21, 6 July 2022 (UTC)

@Morgan695: the exposition has been adapted into 'In spite of the book's portrayal of Achilles and Patroclus as about the same age, Patroclus was in fact depicted much older than Achilles in the original narratives of Homer and Plato, which befits his role of erastes in Ancient Greek pederasty.' without the statement 'The book is marked by major historical inaccuracies'. Anglosophy (talk) 12:21, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

@Anglosophy: The importance of sourcing claims to secondary sources is to avoid giving WP:UNDUE weight to minority viewpoints. Authors have been recontextualizing the relationship between Achilles and Patroclus since Shakespeare, so the fact that Miller is also doing it is not in itself notable. I have revised the section to be sourced to a Daily Beast article where Miller discusses her reason for the change. I'd also recommend not using the term "erastes", as this is a term that is likely not going to be understood by a general audience. Morgan695 (talk) 15:53, 7 July 2022 (UTC)

I think Anglosophy wanted to point out that Miller's claim she "stole it from Plato" is inaccurate because it is not mentioned in this source. Of course it is virtually impossible to write a new interpretation of a Homerian character without being influenced by later authors, so that in fact Miller's characters are her interpretation of various interpretations of interpretations of interpretations... of Homer's interpretation of 400 years of oral tradition about the real Achaian heroes of the Troian War. --62.214.2.46 (talk) 20:08, 22 July 2024 (UTC)

Different perspectives

Although praised for the romantic literature demonstrated within the book, people like Jay Livingston, offer a different perspective of the characters. Achilles, although portrayed as a young hero for many, was understood as a narcissistic character for some. Livingston, compares this novel to that of The Glory of Hera (1968), where he mentions his observation between greek males as, "mostly examples of what we would today call Narcissistic Personality Disorder." Overall the novel, The Song of Achilles, can be used as a novel to explore points of views in regards to the spectrum within love. Appple365 (talk) 04:24, 31 October 2024 (UTC)