Ancient Roman Literature

Catalog description

This course is an introduction to the literature of ancient Rome, a canon that took shape from roughly the 3rd century BCE to the 2nd century CE but covers events as early as 753 BCE. We will read and analyze works of various genres of Roman literature in translation, with authors and works including Plautus, Cicero, Catullus, Sulpicia, Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, Augustus, Livy, Vergil, Lucretius, Seneca, Tacitus, and epigraphy. These authors and works necessarily span a breadth of disciplines (including but not limited to literary studies, gender and sexuality studies, history, art history and archaeology, performing arts, philosophy, and religious studies) which offer a multitude of theoretical approaches and models that we can use to explore our material in an interdisciplinary fashion. Our ultimate goal is to gain a basic understanding of the progression of Roman literature and how each work or genre relates to social and political conditions in Rome at the time. Crosslisted with AMED 1070 .