Talk:The Song of Achilles

"Historical inaccuracies"
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)


 * 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)