| Unit name | Epic |
|---|---|
| Unit code | CLAS22361 |
| Credit points | 20 |
| Level of study | I/5 |
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
| Unit director | Emeritus Professor. Fowler |
| Open unit status | Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None |
| Co-requisites |
None |
| School/department | Department of Classics & Ancient History |
| Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
This unit will examine a selection of epic works from Greece and Rome - all studied in translation - to trace the development of Greek and Latin epic from the oral tradition of Homer through the literary composition exemplified by Virgil's Aeneid to the generically challenging form of Ovid's Metamorphoses. Themes studied in this unit will include epic and genre, epic and gender, epic and myth, epic and history, gods and heroes. Students will be encouraged to consider textual and contextual differences between Greek, Roman, and postclassical epic, and to analyse the changing dynamics of the epic tradition.
1 x essay of c. 2,500 words (50%) and 1 x 90 minute exam (50%).
Charles Rowan Beye, Ancient Epic Poetry: Homer, Apollonius, Virgil, With a Chapter on the Gilgamesh Poems. (Wauconda, IL: Bolchazy-Carducci, 2006).
R. Fowler (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Homer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004)
C. Bates (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Epic (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010)
J.M. Foley (ed.), A Companion to Ancient Epic (Oxford: Blackwell, 2005)
Books required:
Apollonius Rhodius, Jason and the Golden Fleece: The Argonautica (trans. Richard Hunter, Oxford World’s Classics)
Homer, Iliad (trans. Robert Fitzgerald, Oxford World’s Classics)
Homer, Odyssey (trans. Martin Hammond, Duckworth)
Ovid, Metamorphoses (trans. A.D. Melville, Oxford World’s Classics)
Virgil, Aeneid (trans. Allen Mandelbaum, Bantam)
