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Greek set book (A)

Overview

  • Credit value: 30 credits at Level 6
  • Convenor: Prof Catharine Edwards
  • Assessment: a 1000-1500-word commentary (20%), 2500-word essay (20%) and three-hour written examination (60%)

Module description

This module gives you the chance to study Archaic and Classical Greek texts in depth under specialist tutors with active research interests in that area. You will learn to tackle complex Greek literary writing and to appreciate its artistry and ideas. Your tutors will also help you to place the set texts in their wider intellectual, social and political context. The texts we study each year change in response to student needs and preferences.

This year we will focus on Homeric epic. We will look at two books in their entirety, Iliad 24 and Odyssey 19. Iliad 24 concludes the epic and focuses on grief and reconciliation. The book is dominated by the extremely powerful, emotional scene between Priam and Achilles. We will then read book 19 of the Odyssey, a pivotal moment in the epic where the hero meets with his wife for the first time since his return and gets recognised by his old nurse. Themes of recognition, lamentation, heroism, sophrosyne, aidos, kleos etc. will be examined against the backdrop of the two books and, more broadly, Homeric epic as a whole.

The classes and coursework involve close analysis of the text from a linguistic, literary, historical and cultural point of view. You will be expected to prepare portions of the text in advance and then discuss the major issues emerging in class. The module will enable you to:

  • become experienced in reading Homeric Greek in verse and become acquainted with the unique epic idiom
  • understand and explore composition, metre, character creation, narratological devices, historical background, gender, heroism and the influence of Homeric epic on Greek thought and identity construction throughout the centuries
  • place the epics in the context of myth, larger cultural and historical developments (e.g. the introduction of the alphabet), and archaic/Bronze Age/Iron Age culture.

Teaching on this module is stimulating, with plenty of student participation and interpretation. We will translate portions of the texts together, as well as discussing language, context and composition.

Learning objectives

By the end of the module, you will be able to:

  • translate and appreciate complex Archaic/Classical Greek literature in the original
  • place your reading in the context of wider debates on Classical literature
  • study how the text has survived to the modern world, for example, with the aid of the apparatus criticus, and reflect on the implications for understanding it
  • engage directly with surviving ancient evidence - and so transform your understanding of the ancient world.