Part 1: Introduction
Part 2: general reading schedule
Part 3: course outlines, course keywords

This course will introduce you to the world of ancient Greece through reading, analysis and discussion of major texts created in the archaic and classical periods, roughly the 8th through 5th centuries B.C.E. Our authors were not only famous throughout antiquity, they have remained profoundly influential in subsequent ages down to the present day. While we shall strive to understand these works from an historical perspective as expressions of Greek culture, we can also question them about their meanings for contemporary readers. In some cases, the import of these poetic, dramatic and narrative expressions has remained quite stable and enduring: this in turn is something of what we mean when we call a literary work a 'classic.' However, part of the modern and historicist mentality recognizes that contemporary cultureólike the epochs which precede itóis unique, constituted by exceptional historical circumstances, intellectual developments and countless other factors both particular and general; and so it behooves us to engage the ëclassicsí in a critical, flexible and imaginative spirit which will permit them to inspire us in new ways and to communicate problems and issues in a genuinely different manner from what modern discourses have accustomed us to.

Our discussions will be supplemented by activities involving additional research, film and computer- assisted materials; these will be assigned at appropriate intervals, with plenty of advance notice. Here is our schedule of readings in broad outline:

Week 1 Introduction
Weeks 2-3 Homer, Iliad
Weeks 3-5 Homer, Odyssey
Weeks 6-8 Aeschylus, Oresteia
Weeks 8-10 Sophocles, Theban Tragedies
Weeks 11-12 Euripides
Week 13 Ancient Poetry and Epic
Weeks 14-15 Ancient Theater

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