Homer's Iliad and the Tragedies of Troy: War and Its Aftermath
CCIV 220Z
Winter 2020 not offered
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Please note: some readings and assignments will be due during winter break, prior to arriving on campus for Winter Session. Please visit the Winter Session website for the full syllabus -- http://www.wesleyan.edu/wintersession.
The Iliad, Homer's great epic of war, had a profound influence on the creators of what we now broadly conceive of as ancient Greek culture. Athenian playwrights, visual artists, and even its first historians were inspired and informed by Homer's harrowing depiction of the effects of war on the victorious and the defeated alike.
In this course, we will read the Iliad along with five 5th century tragedies populated by the victorious warriors and defeated women of the Trojan War. (All reading will be in translation). We will examine the social codes of Homeric society in the Iliad, and the ways in which tragic playwrights re-presented and reassessed the Homeric hero for their audiences -- a majority of whom were soldiers, combat veterans or orphans of war. In these ancient stories of social bonds destroyed by violence, we may find a lens through which to examine issues of rage and the desire for restitution in our own society. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
HA CLAS |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Major Requirement for: None |
Major Readings:
The bulk of our reading will be the Iliad and the tragedies - Sophocles' Ajax and Philoctetes, Euripides', Women of Troy and Iphigeneia at Aulis, and Aeschylus' Agamemnon. We will also read a number of contemporary scholarly essays to help us frame and deepen our discussion and written work.
Required texts: Homer, Iliad (translator, Stanley Lombardo); Sophocles' Ajax and Philoctetes (trans. Meineck and Woodruff); Aeschylus' Agamemnon (trans. TBA); and a course packet of scholarly articles and relevant excerpts from the works of Herodotus and Thucydides, historians of the Persian and Peloponnesian Wars, respectively. Additional PDFs or links to articles may be posted on Moodle.
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Examinations and Assignments:
To be completed before the first class meeting: For our first class meeting, everyone is required to post on the class Moodle forum, and complete the following reading: Iliad, Bks. 1 - 3; and the introduction to Lombardo's translation of the Iliad, by Sheila Murnaghan; "The Iliad: an unpredictable classic," by Donald Lateiner; and "The Gods in the Homeric Epics," by Emily Kearns. The latter two will be made available to you either in the course packet or as PDFs. Please visit the Winter Session website for the full syllabus - http://www.wesleyan.edu/wintersession.
In this course you will write three papers (3-4 pages each, double-spaced, typewritten) in response to a prompt, and a final paper on a topic of your choice, in consultation with me (no less than 5 pages, as above). I will also ask you to write a reflection about your experience of the class in response to my questions; this will not be graded. |
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