CLASSICS 36: CLASSICAL MYTHOLOGY
SPRING 1999
In this course, we will survey many of the myths of the ancient Greeks and explore the various means by which these stories may be interpreted, both by the Greeks themselves and by modern scholars in various fields and disciplines. This course will involve more than simply learning stories and memorizing Greek names, although that is certainly expected. More importantly, I hope you will think about what the stories meant to the Greeks, as well as any universal meaning they might contain. Our careful analysis of literary works and visual representations of myths should make you a better student of European literature, music, and arts.
Grading: There will be two hour exams (25% each), a final exam (50%), and an optional paper which may be substituted for the major essay on the final (50% of final exam; 25% of course grade). Grades will be based solely on this written work.
REQUIRED TEXTS:
RECOMMENDED TEXTS:
OPTIONAL TEXTS:
OTHER BOOKS ON RESERVE:
R = General reserve in McCabe
| 1/19/99 | Tuesday | Introduction |
| 1/21 | Thursday | Homer, Iliad 1-3 Brunvand, The Vanishing Hitchhiker (RB) Bremmer, "What is a Greek Myth?" (RB) |
| 1/26 | Tuesday | Homer, Iliad 4-6, 9, 16 Vernant, "The Society of the Gods" (RB) |
| 1/28 | Thursday | Homer, Iliad 21-24 Lamberton, "Interpretation, Allegory, and the Critics of Homer" (RB) |
| 2/2 | Tuesday | Homer, Odyssey 1-8 |
| 2/4 | Thursday | Homer, Odyssey 9-12 Hansen, "Odysseus and the Oar" (RB) Theocritus, Idyll 11 (RB) |
| 2/9 | Tuesday | Homer, Odyssey 13-19 |
| 2/11 | Thursday | Homer, Odyssey 20-24 |
| 2/16 | Tuesday | Exam |
| 2/18 | Thursday | Sophocles, Philoctetes Euripides, Trojan Women |
| 2/23 | Tuesday | Hesiod, Theogony Caldwell's introduction to the Theogony, 17-26 Gould, "On Making Sense of Greek Religion" (RB) |
| 2/25 | Thursday | Aeschylus, Agamemnon Aeschylus, Choephoroi (Libation Bearers) |
| 3/2 | Tuesday | Aeschylus, Eumenides Rabinowitz, "From Force to Persuasion: Aeschylus' Oresteia as Cosmogonic Myth" (RB) |
| 3/4 | Thursday | Plutarch, Theseus (RB) Connor, "Theseus in Classical Athens" (RB) Goldhill, "The Great Dionysia and Civic Ideology" (RB) Parker, "Myths of Early Athens" (RB) Homeric Hymn to Athena (#28) |
| SPRING BREAK | ||
| 3/16 | Tuesday | Homeric Hymn to Artemis (#27) Callimachus, Hymn to Artemis (RB) Homeric Hymns to Aphrodite (#5 and 6) Homeric Hymn to Hera (#12) Burkert, GR, 131-135; 149-156 (R) Bamberger, "The Myth of Matriarchy: Why Men Rule in Primitive Society" (RB) |
| 3/18 | Thursday | Hesiod, Works and Days (RB) Reread Theogony 404-61 Semonides (RB) Euripides, Hippolytus Lefkowitz, "Princess Ida and the Amazons" (RB) |
| 3/23 | Tuesday | Apollonius, Argonautica 3 (R) Euripides, Medea |
| 3/25 | Thursday | Homeric Hymn to Apollo (#3) Homeric Hymn to Hermes (#4) Homeric Hymn to Hephaestus (#20) Burkert, GR, 125-31 (Zeus); 136-9 (Poseidon); 143-49 (Apollo); 156-9 (Hermes); 167-70 (Hephaestus, Ares) (R) |
| 3/30 | Tuesday | Exam |
| 4/1 | Thursday | Euripides, Alcestis Homeric Hymn to Heracles (#15) Burkert, GR, 194-203, 208-11 (R) |
| 4/6 | Tuesday | Sophocles, The Women of Trachis (Trachiniae) Boardman, "Heracles, Peisistratos and Eleusis" (RB) |
| 4/8 | Thursday | Sophocles, Oedipus the King Freud, "Interpretation of Dreams" (RB) |
| 4/13 | Tuesday | Sophocles, Oedipus at Colonus Sophocles, Antigone |
| 4/15 | Thursday | Homeric Hymns to Dionysos (#1, 7, 26) Euripides, Bacchae Burkert, GR, 161-7; 290-5 (R) |
| 4/20 | Tuesday | Homeric Hymn to Demeter (#2) Burkert, GR, 285-90; 242-46 (R) Finley, "Foreword" (RB) Zeitlin, "Cultic Models of the Female" (RB) |
| 4/22 | Thursday | Ovid, Metamorphoses 1 and 8 (R) pp100-114 (Perseus); pp234-7 (Orpheus and Eurydice); pp259-63 (Death of Orpheus)* |
| 4/27 | Tuesday | Ovid, Metamorphoses pp326-64; 388-92* (R) |
| 4/29 | Thursday | Knox, "The Enduring Myths of Ancient Greece" (RB) |
| 5/5 | Optional papers due | |
* page numbers for Ovid's Metamorphoses are from the Humphries translation, on reserve at McCabe Library.