During my last semester of undergrad, I took a course on oral traditions. We started with the most modern oral tradition (they’re dying out),the Blues, and worked our way back through the Serbo-Croation songs to Beowulf and the Iliad and the Odyssey.

By that time, I had read both the Iliad and the Odyssey at least three other times for school, not counting what I knew because of an early fascination with Greek mythology. For the first time in years, I had a teacher who could present the works in a new light. I wish I could remember his name.