LIT 203 - Greek Literature from Homer to the Early Hellenistic Period

(CLAS 203) Credits: 3 Prerequisite: Completion of FW requirement. Readings in translation from Homer, Hesiod, the tragedians, the comedians, and the lyric and pastoral poets, including selections from Herodotus and Thucydides, and from Plato’s and Aristotle’s reflections on literature. The course includes readings from modern critical writings. We read some of the most famous stories of the Western world–from the Iliad and the Odyssey, to Milton’s Paradise Lost and Joyce’s Ulysses, via Virgil’s Aeneid and Lucan’s Civil War. All of these works are epic narratives, each presenting a different concept of the hero, and yet, at the same time, participating in a coherent, on-going and unfinished tradition. We consider such questions as the role of violence in literature; the concept of the heroic as it reflects evolving ideas of the individual and society; and the idea of a literary tradition.
FDR: HL Crotty.