A Passage to Some Place
I am slowly progressing in Forster’s A Passage to India, a book that I had bought some two years ago but never got the chance to explore properly. For one reason or the other, it always seemed to climb down on my reading list instead of climbing up.
Now at page 15, I think I understand why I prefer to read classical Greek dramas and epics instead of, well, anything a little younger. I enjoy the supernatural events, the Gods and Goddesses, the numerous intertwined plots and families, and the grandeur of mythology. I also appreciate the language (of the translations, naturally) immensely and there doesn’t pass a page without infusing me with linguistic inspiration.
Can a modern writer pull such fantasy off in the now and be considered anything but a hopeless sci-fi wannabe writer? Better yet, can a modern writer devise similar compelling plots and not borrow any from Aeschylus, Sophocles, or Euripides? Do these stories engage the reader so, that he cannot escape them to creativity?
This sort of argument is really inseparable from the knowledge that, fiction or fact, these Greek stories made part of a people’s religion. Separate from their religious setting, there is neither cause nor purpose for these stories. Drama was born during festivals celebrating Dionysus, and they were born to do exactly that – celebrate the God of wine. To want to imitate these masterpieces merely for their dramatic or stylistic or even linguistic value would, in my opinion, be a feeble attempt at matching something quite unmatched – something that traveled beyond the common nature of literature to the heights of belief.
And I am also addicted to Greek and Roman mythology – the classics are second nature! But then again, I just read anything and gobble it up. Sometimes I think I have no opinion – as long as it’s in a book, I’ll take it. 
I think you would be happier in a Classics Department than an English Literature one, actually.