Topics in Greek Literature: Pindar & Greek Lyric

Catalog description

Open only to advanced undergraduates, this course includes a weekly seminar and a translation session. Three-quarters of the reading will be from primary sources. Current topic description: We will engage in a close reading of the original text of three ancient plays (Libation Bearers, Oedipus Tyrannus, and Hippolytus) while tracing their afterlife from the ancient world to the present day, in poetry, drama, and film. Our focus will be both on the enduring relevance of Attic tragedy and also on its radical difference from the theatrical traditions which it helped catalyze. Current topic description: This seminar focuses on the ancient prose works traditionally grouped under the category of the ancient Greek novel: Callirhoe by Chariton, Leucippe and Clitophon by Achilles Tatius, Ephesian Tale by Xenophon of Ephesus, Aethiopica by Heliodorus of Emesa, and the idiosyncratic Daphnis and Chloe by Longus. Students will read these novels in their entirety in English while translating substantial selections from the original Greek. Class meetings will be divided between close translation work and discussion of relevant modern scholarship on the ancient Greek novel.