Classical Civilisation 2A: 2007-8
Greek and Roman Epic and Drama (7XKV)
Course Document

Period: Semester 1

Credits: 20

Convener: Dr Julia L. Shear (j.shear@classics.arts.gla.ac.uk; tel. 0141-330 3222)

Departmental Secretary: Mrs Jane Neil, room 316 (j.neil@classics.arts.gla.ac.uk; Tel. 0141-330 5695)

The Classics Handbook gives general information about the department, an overview of all its courses and guidance on all issues relating to learning and teaching. Teaching and assessment will be carried out on the understanding that you have read this document. It can be browsed online or may be downloaded from the departmental website (http://www.classics.arts.gla.ac.uk), with which all students should be familiar. Follow the handbook link from the home page. Any student having difficulty accessing this document should consult the Departmental secretary. A hard copy is available, for consultation only, from the Departmental office.

1. Prerequisites

A grade D or above in one of the following: Classical Civilisation 1A, Classical Civilisation1B, Classical Greek Civilisation 1 (D.A.C.E. course 1 or 2), Latin 1A, 1B, 1C, 1D, Greek 1A, 1B, or a course at level 1 in Archaeology, Civil Law, or Religion.

2. Aims and Intended Learning Outcomes

a) Aims

to introduce students to influential works of two major areas of literary culture in ancient Greece and Rome, epic and drama;
to explore the development of epic and drama as literary genres in Greece and Rome;
to encourage students to understand works of literature and art in the historical, cultural, and intellectual context in which they were produced.

b) Intended Learning Outcomes

By the end of the course, you should be able to:

show familiarity with the set texts and write and talk about them in an informed and perceptive way;
identify the main issues in the literary history and interpretation of epic and drama and relate your knowledge, where appropriate, to the cultural artefacts (material as well as literary) you have studied;
use reference works and secondary material to study the subject matter of the course;
present in tutorials clear and concise summaries of your investigations;
produce well-researched, properly referenced, coherent coursework essays that are fully relevant to the question;
comment perceptively on any passage from the set texts that may be set for examination;
write informed and coherent examination essays that are relevant to the questions set.

3. Timetable

Lectures: Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at 1.00 pm in Room 408, Rankine Building, Oakfield Avenue (see end of document for lecture schedule)

Tutorials: Start in Week 2. Each group has six meetings, normally fortnightly, either on Monday or Friday, at 1.00 pm. Groups and dates will be posted on the Departmental noticeboard in the first week of the course. If you have a clash please contact Mrs Jane Neil, Departmental secretary a.s.a.p. Attendance at tutorials is mandatory and is recorded. If you will be unable to attend a particular tutorial due to illness or other good reason, please contact Mrs Neil or the tutor concerned preferably in advance of the absence.

4. Prescribed Texts

Homer, The Iliad (trans. R. Fagles, Harmondsworth, 1992)

Aeschylus, The Oresteia (trans. C. Collard, Oxford World’s Classics, Oxford, 2003)

Sophocles, The Three Theban Plays (trans. R. Fagles, Harmondsworth, 1982)

Euripides, The Bacchae and Other Plays (trans. R. Rutherford, Harmondsworth, 2006)

Plautus, The Pot of Gold and Other Plays (trans. E. F. Watling, Harmondsworth, 1965)

Vergil, Aeneid: A New Prose Translation by D. A. West (Harmondsworth, 1991)

5. Recommended General Reading

The following general work is extremely helpful on a multitude of topics:

Oxford Classical Dictionary, third edition (Oxford 1996)

Detailed bibliographies on the prescribed texts are available on Moodle (see 8, below).

6. Assessment

The assessment for this course consists of two essays (20% each of the final assessment) and an end of course examination in January 2008 (60% of the final assessment). Students who do not complete at least 75% of the assessment during a single academic session will be refused credit for this course.

Essays

Length about 1500-2000 words. Full details and reading lists are available on Moodle (see 8, below).

1. Due Monday 22 October 2007

Either

(a) ‘The Oresteia is the story of political progress’. Discuss.

(b) What do books 13 and 14 reveal about the contrast between gods and humans in The Iliad?

2. Due Monday 3 December 2007

Either

(a) To what extent and for what reasons are Plautus’ characters aware that they are characters in a play?

(b) Discuss the gods and goddesses who feature in Books 1-4 of the Aeneid. How important a role do they play in the various events of Vergil’s narrative? Are we expected to take them seriously?

End-of-Course Examination

January 2008 (2 hours) 60% of final assessment

Comment on one of the following passages (one from Homer and one from Aeschylus): (10% of final assessment)

Comment on one of the following passages (one from Vergil and one from Plautus): (10% of final assessment)

Write an essay on two of the following subjects (four in all, one each on Art; Sophocles; Euripides; Homer and Vergil compared): (40% of final assessment).

Copies of past papers are available in the University Library and on its website.

7. Resit Arrangements

A student who obtains a credit bearing grade below D, or is MV or CW, in January should normally take the resit in the August diet unless advised otherwise by their Adviser of Studies. Where the failure to obtain a grade D in the overall course includes failure to obtain a D (i.e. 9 on the 22 point scale) in one of the essays of the course, you will be allowed if you wish to submit a new essay on a different subject (to be specified). The essay title will be available not later than a week after the results of the first diet of assessment are published, and the essay must be submitted no later than the day of the resit examination, which must also be taken.

8. Moodle

The Faculty of Arts Virtual Learning Environment, moodle, is located at

http://moodle.gla.ac.uk/arts. For general login and enrolment information see the Classics Handbook. Available on the course pages are timetables, handouts, details of assignments and bibliographies, announcements, web resources, discussion boards, chat rooms and much more. More information is available at the site itself. In the interests of improving academic standards, the general patterns of use of the class may be monitored, but not those of individuals.

9. Progression

Classical Civilisation 2B: The First Meeting will be at 1.00 pm on Tuesday, 22January 2008.

Students who have obtained credits in Classical Civilisation courses 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B with two grades of at least C, and the remaining two of not less than D, are guaranteed an offer of entry to Honours;

Students who have obtained credits in Classical Civilisation courses 1A, 1B, 2A and 2B with fewer than two grades of C or above but with none less than D may be offered admission if the Head of Department judges that their previous performance offers a reasonable prospect of their reaching the standard required for Honours;

Students who have obtained credits in two or three Classical Civilisation courses with two grades of at least C and no grades less than D may be offered a place in the Honours Class, but such students will be required to take the missing course(s) concurrently with Junior Honours and to obtain a grade of at least D in it/them.

A pass in this course may be counted towards one of the named three-year M.A. degrees in Ancient Studies, European Civilisation, Historical Studies and Literary Studies.

The lecturers for this course are:

Prof Matthew Fox (MAF); m.fox@classics.arts.gla.ac.uk

Prof Roger P. H. Green (RPHG); r.green@classics.arts.gla.ac.uk

Dr Costas Panayotakis (CP); c.panayotakis@classics.arts.gla.ac.uk

Dr Ian Ruffell (IAR); i.ruffell@classics.arts.gla.ac.uk

Dr Julia L. Shear (JLS); j.shear@classics.arts.gla.ac.uk

Lecture Schedule

Week 1	Tues 25 Sept	Introduction: The Iliad and Greek literature (MAF)
	Wed 26 Sept	Orality and Poetic Culture in Archaic Greece (IAR)
	Thur 27 Sept	Homer and the Bronze Age (JLS)

Week 2	Tues 2 Oct	What are they fighting for? (MAF)
	Wed 3 Oct	Humanity in war (MAF) (MAF)
	Thur 4 Oct	Visualization, narrative, and hero-fetishism (MAF)

Week 3	Tues 9 Oct	Oresteia 1: Form: trilogy, space and plot (IAR)
	Wed 10 Oct	Oresteia 2: Revenge: divine justice and human agency (IAR)
	Thur 11 Oct	Oresteia 3: Gender: subversion or containment? (IAR)


Week 4	Tues 16 Oct	Oresteia 4: Economics, Law and Allegory: tragedy as intervention(IAR) (IAR) (IAR) (IAR)
	Wed 17 Oct	Text and Image: an introduction (JLS)
	Thur 18 Oct	Images and the Iliad (JLS)

Week 5	Tues 23 Oct	The Trojan War beyond the Iliad (JLS)
	Wed 24 Oct	Destruction and the aftermath of War (JLS)
	Thur 25 Oct	Antigone 1: Why is the Antigone not the Creon? (IAR)

Week 6	Tues 30 Oct	Antigone 2: Ethics and politics: the role of the audience (IAR)
	Wed 31 Oct	Bacchae 1: The theatrical abyss: performance and fiction (IAR)
	Thur 1 Nov	Bacchae 2: The tyranny of desire: sexuality and power (IAR)

Week 7	Tues 6 Nov	What’s ‘new’ about Greek New Comedy? (CP)
	Wed 7 Nov	Staging a comedy in Rome (CP)
	Thur 8 Nov	Comparing Plautus to his Greek predecessors (CP)

Week 8	Tues 13 Nov	Plautine dramaturgy and the Pseudolus 1 (CP)
	Wed 14 Nov	Plautine dramaturgy and the Pseudolus 2 (CP)
	Thur 15 Nov	Pseudolus the heroic playwright (CP)

Week 9	Tues 20 Nov	Plautus’ ‘Comedy of Errors’ (CP)
	Wed 21 Nov	Humour in The Brothers Menaechmus (CP)
	Thur 22 Nov	Vergil and his Times (RPHG)

Week 10	Tues 27 Nov	Vergil and Homer (RPHG)
	Wed 28 Nov	Romanizing the Epic (RPHG)
	Thur 29 Nov	Aeneas the Refugee (RPHG)

Week 11	Tues 4 Dec	Aeneas at Carthage (RPHG)
	Wed 5 Dec	Aeneas in the Underworld (RPHG)
	Thur 6 Dec	Aeneas on the Palatine (RPHG)

Week 12	Tues 11 Dec	Love and War in Italy (RPHG)
	Wed 12 Dec	The Endings of the Aeneid (RPHG)
	Thur 13 Dec	Vergil’s Influence and Reception (RPHG)

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Classical Civilisation 2A: 2007-8Greek and Roman Epic and Drama (7XKV) Course Document