Syllabus, Spring 2015
Weekly Assignments‑‑[For
useful analytical vocabulary and ideas for discussion/exams/papers, click on
hyperlinked "Weekly
Key Terms and Topics" in Brackets Beside Weeks]
Background Reading in italics
and
required readings in boldface.
WEEK 1--The Olympian Gods and Heroic Humans: The Curse on the House of Atreus, Part I
Homeric Hymns [700-300 B.C.E.] #1, #2, #5, & #7 pp. 1‑15, 47-55, 56-58. Background: Edith Hamilton, "Introduction to Classical Mythology," "Twelve Great Olympians,"& "The Two Great Gods of Earth" (1‑35, 47-63), or for Graves readers who are shaky on the gods, Vol. 1, 31-111 (you can skip the footnotes in any Graves reading and it's half as long). NOTE: THERE IS A QUIZ ON THE GREEK GODS ON GOUCHERLEARN. Take it and pass it before you try to read the hymns or they will make no sense to you. One of the classical literature scholar's most important tasks is learning to think like people who understand the world in terms these dieties as real forces that make things happen. For instance, if these words persuade you to change your mind about "pagan myths" and to start experimentally thinking like a Bronze Age or Athenian Greek, Athena has visited you and granted you strategic wisdom that will be crucial for passing this course.
Thurs. 1/29
:
Aeschylus [525-456],
The Orestia (trilogy) [458], Part One:
"Agamemnon." Background: Hamilton,
"House of Atreus," "Trojan War" and "Fall of
WEEK 2--The Olympian Gods and Heroic Humans: The Curse on the House of Atreus, Part II
Tues. 2/3: Aeschylus, Orestia: Part Two-- "Choephoroe" or "The Libation Bearers" Selections from Lattimore's Greek Lyrics: Solon of Athens (18‑23); the Early Metrical Inscriptions (31‑32); Alcman of Sparta (33‑36).
Thurs. 2/5
Aeschylus,
Orestia: Part Three--"Eumenides."
WEEK 3--Heroic Humans Struggling to Control their Fates in the City-State: Sophocles, Euripides. Drama and Short-Form Lyrics as Cultural-Forming Mnemonic Devices
Agon
of Euripides' tragedy vs. Aeschylus and Sophocles, and Aristophanes' comedy vs.
the tragic poets--Aristotle's aesthetics & politics; Comic Healing: old comedy's
personal satire & new comedy's "types"; eroticism & comedy.
Tues. 2/10:
Sophocles [496-406],
Oedipus the King [?429].
Background:
Aristotle, Poetics on tragedy;
Sophocles,
Antigone [441];
Thurs. 2/12:
Euripides [485 or 480-406],
Medea [431].
Background
WEEK 4--Comic Drama and Epic Singers: Dramas, Short-Form Lyrics and Long-Form Epics as Cultural-Forming Mnemonic Devices
Lyric
mode & mental state; lyric personae & dramatic characters; poetic
melos vs. "words."/ Homeric Epic &
Oral-Formulaic Tradition:
Tues. 2/17:
Aristophanes [?445-385],
Lysistrata [411]
Thurs. 2/19:
Homer [oral tradition, ?1100-700; "Homer," c. 700?], epic
formulae/epithets; Parry-Lord Hypothesis; parallel & embedded plot;
allegory, extended simile, arete/excellence,
energia,
litotes, foreshadowing;
guest/host relation & gifts; gods & mortals.
Background:
Aristotle, Poetics, tragedy vs. epic (the
reading is hyperlinked).
WEEK 5--Homeric
Epic (cont.)
Tues. 2/24:
Homer, Odyssey, Books
4-5-6-7.
Thurs. 2/26:
Homer, Odyssey,
Books 8-9-10.
Tues. 3/3:
Homer, Odyssey, Books
11-12-13-14.
Thurs. 3/5:
Homer, Odyssey, Books
15-16-17.
WEEK 7--Homeric
Epic (cont.)
Tues. 3/10: Homer, Odyssey, Books 18-19-20-21
Thurs. 3/12:
Homer, Odyssey, Books 22-23-24
March 14-22, Spring Break
<While we're on Spring Break, Alexander the Great conquers Persian Empire with Macedonian-led
Greek armies, spreads Greek culture from
WEEK 8--Roman Themes and Genres: Lyric and Satire
City
Life vs. Imperial Citizenship & Roman Receptions of Greek Literature:
Lyric--geographic & historical changes in post-C5; imperial thinking;
Alexander the Great's empire & spread of Greek culture; Alexandrian neoteric
poetry; coding emotions in verse; social satire in imperial society; manuscript
"publication" among reading elites.
Tues. 3/24:
Greek-Latin Transition: Alexander's Empire, Roman
city-state vs. Greeks,
Thurs. 3/26:
Catullus II: the sacred poems
[#34,
61, 62, 63, 64.]
WEEK 9--Roman Satiric Verse Epistle and the Narrative Romance--click here for a short overview of our two representative satirists.
Appeal to popularity of a truly "mass culture," and to ruling elite taste as art's
protection against censorship; codifying rules of art;
Tues. 3/31:
Thurs. 4/2:
Horace, Epistles, Book II, number 1;
Juvenal
[50?-127? C.E.] Satires VII [?120 C.E.].
WEEK 10--The
Invention of Pastoral Romance and the Cyclical Embedded Narrative
Thurs. 4/9: Ovid [43 B.C.E.-?17 C.E.],
Metamorphoses [8 C.E.], Book 1 (3-44) and
Book 3 (91-128)
WEEK 12--The
Literate or "Secondary" Epic
Literature as a tool of nation-building and state-craft; "foundation texts" (Stanley Fish); empire and colonialism's anxieties. Click here for an image of the "Capitaline 'Tabula Italica'," a marble bas-relief carving from Virgil's era of scenes from the Iliad and other epics of the Trojan war--it's only 10x11 inches, but amazingly constructed. Click here for a brief history of the Dido and Aeneas stories before Virgil joined them, in Virgil's version, and in later English adaptations of Virgil, ending in Henry Purcell's C17 baroque opera, Dido and Aeneas. Click here to see a Web page that excerpts and links to passages from the Iliad that Virgil would have known in which Aeneas plays a role.) For Emily Wilson's Times Literary Supplement review of Silvia Montiglio's From Villain to Hero: Odysseus in Ancient Thought (Ann Arbor, MI: U Michigan P, 2012), click here. It will help you see how the character we have been reading about was understood in the centuries after Homer, and especially it may prepare you for how he will appear in the satires of Horace and in Virgil's Aeneid. If, as you read, you are reminded of what you were doing as you wrote your midterm, you are right.
Tues. 4/21:
Thurs. 4/23:
WEEK 13-- [Now is the time, if you have not already done so, to email me a short note about your final paper topic, and to post that note to GoucherLearn so that your colleagues can help you think about it more creatively. Writing is a social act that begins in personal engagement. As an E. M. Forster character advises, "Only connect." That is the key.]
Thurs. 4/30: Virgil, Aeneid Books 7 & 8
Tues. 5/5:
Virgil, Aeneid Books 9 & 10
ENGLISH 230 FINAL PAPERS DUE Monday, 5/11 or negotiate a better date,
but don't make me guess.