CLAS 205 - Reading Rome: A Survey of Latin Literature

FDR: HL
Planned Offering: Fall 2016 and every third year
Credits: 3

The course offers a survey of influential works composed in Latin between the 3rd century BCE and the 2nd century CE. Alongside poems, histories, and philosophical writings that were originally conceived of as literary projects, we also examine plays, military chronicles, speeches, and letters, all of which come down to the present as “literature” but may not have been created as such. The boundaries of “literature” is an ongoing topic of inquiry throughout the term. Students explore the literary traditions represented in the readings and consider their impact on other traditions, with the bulk of class sessions spent discussing the significance of the literary works and improving our knowledge of the contexts–historical and literary–in which they were composed. Dance.