CLCV211 - Syllabus

CLCV211/ICPL 330
Epic and Empire: Ancient and Modern
MTh 1:30-2:40
SCI 261
Instructor: Brendon Reay, Classical Studies
Office: Founders 302C
Office phone: x2632
Office hours: MTh 9:45-11 & by appointment
Printer-friendly format available

Alexander the Great is said to have slept with two things under his pillow: a dagger and a copy of Homer's Iliad. Julius Caesar and Augustus traced their lineage back to Aeneas, the hero of Virgil's Aeneid. Epic poetry and empire: coincidence? Or collusion? This course will investigate the relationship of epic and empire, focusing especially on Virgil's Aeneid and Lucan's Civil War, and their Augustan and Neronian contexts.

How is poetry imbued with political meaning? What is the relationship of epic narrative, myth, history, and empire? Does poetry reflect its contexts? Or refract them? Is epic a prop of imperial ideology? Or is it a site of resistance? Special attention to narrative strategies and generic motifs; gender and "otherness”; questions of patronage, propaganda, and resistance. We will consider post-classical appropriations and transformations of classical epic form and ideologies in Milton's Paradise Lost, Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and Walcott’s Omeros.

Texts, Course Website, E-Reserves
There are seven required texts for the course, all of which are available in the bookstore. For Homer, Virgil, and Lucan, you must have the texts listed below, so that we can all work from the same translation.

Homer, Iliad (trans. Lattimore), U of Chicago
Homer, Odyssey (trans. Lattimore), U. of Chicago
Virgil, Aeneid (trans. Mandelbaum), Bantam
Lucan, Civil War, Oxford U. Press.
Milton, Paradise Lost
Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Walcott, Omeros (Farrar, Straus & Giroux)

Thanks to the heroic efforts of Epic & Empire alumna Tara McGovern (’04), there is a website for the course. Point your browser to: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/index.html
The website has links to a variety of stuff. Some of it essential, some of it is literally fun and games. I’ll direct you from the syllabus both to various required readings and optional juicy tidbits, but feel free to indulge your curiosity and wander around the site. I’m always looking for good additions to the site, so if you find something particularly useful and/or fun, let me know!

In addition to reading big, great poems, we’ll be reading historical narratives to orient us to a poem’s historical contexts, and some literary criticism to immerse us in some of the literary and political issues at stake. Thanks to the Classical Studies Dept. office assistants, these readings are available as PDF files in an e-Reserves folder inside the First Class course conference.

Course Requirements
This class is a seminar, which means that we are engaged in a community enterprise in a way that may be more pronounced than in other kinds of course formats, and your curiosity, diligence, and active participation are vital to our collective experience, to say nothing of your individual benefit. I've set up a First Class conference for the course, which I hope will be a convenient and productive venue for us to continue conversations that we begin in class, and to share ideas, questions, answers. Feel free to post about other topics that you feel 1. might be of interest to your classmates; and 2. have some link to the readings and issues of the course.

The final grade you earn for the course will depend on your performance in three areas: class participation, a midterm exam, and a final paper. The percentage breakdown is as follows:

Class participation: 20%
Midterm exam: 25%
Paper topic: 10%
Three page précis: 15%
Final paper: 30%

Class participation
One of the premises of a seminar is that we learn best by being active agents, not passive recipients, of our education. Here are my minimal expectations for your participation in this course:

Attendance. I expect you to attend every class, health permitting. If you are ill and unable to attend, I expect a phone call (office phone: 2632) or an email before class alerting me to your situation.
Punctuality. I expect you to be on time. If you have a class or other obligation immediately before our class that will cause you to be late on a regular basis, please let me know.
Preparation. I expect you to be prepared for every class, i.e. you will have completed all of the assigned work.
Contribution. Our time together every Monday and Thursday is an opportunity to learn from one another, and I expect you to share your knowledge, questions, and ideas in class and/or on the FC course conference. Let me emphasize this last point. I regard serious, regular dialogue on the course conference as an alternative to the serious, regular dialogue of our in-class dialogue. What does this mean? Well, wondering about Achilles’ heroism in the Iliad, and proposing some ideas, and responding to (whether in agreement or disagreement) and/or building on someone else’s ideas counts. Electronic drooling or disdain about Brad Pitt in this fall’s movie based on the Iliad, for example, doesn’t count.
Brief writing assignments. I’ll try to focus our thinking for most of our meetings by asking you to concentrate on this or that part of the reading, and by asking you to write a paragraph or two about one or more questions about the reading. I don’t expect a page or two of polished prose, but I do expect more than a couple of hastily composed, semi-coherent sentences. These are exercises for our brain BEFORE we come to class, in other words, so that we can hit the ground running.

Class participation can be a notoriously difficult performance to evaluate (for me and for you). To help us both evaluate your class participation, we will meet twice during the semester to compare notes, once during the week of Sept. 29 and once during the week of Nov. 3.

Midterm Exam
The midterm will be a 70-minute exam. You may pick it up anytime after class on Monday, Oct. 6 and take it at your convenience, wherever you’d like. The exam is closed-book. The exam is due back to me no later than 2:40 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 9. It will consist of two sections. In the first section, you will identify and briefly explain the significance of characters or words or ideas or places from the reading that we will have done up to that point. The second section will consist of short essays.

Paper Topic and 3-pg précis
This assignment is closely connected with the Final Paper (see next paragraph). My aim in breaking these two stages out explicitly from the whole project of the final paper is to minimize the “ohmigod-that-big-paper-is-due-in-2-days-I-guess-I’ll-just-sit-down-tonight-and-write-it” experience that can happen near the end of the term. With a some work and thought and a couple of deadlines earlier in the process, I think that you’ll possibly have a more satisfying, less frenetic intellectual experience than you might otherwise. With all of this in mind, a one or two paragraph description of your paper is due no later than Monday, November 24th by 5 p.m. I do not expect a polished summary of a paper that has been completely thought out, but I do expect more than a paragraph of apparently random "maybes" with little if any indication that some careful thinking or research has taken place — i.e., I expect some specifics (texts, references to secondary reading that you think will be germane). Then, 2 weeks later, on Monday December 8, a 3-pg précis of your paper is due. I expect this to be a coherent and detailed description of your paper: its thesis, some if not all of the steps of the argument, passages that you think you’ll be discussing, some secondary reading that is helping you think about your topic, a bibliography.

Final Paper
Length: 15+ pp. This is not a "research" paper in the sense of a paper that summarizes different scholarly views on this or that issue or question. The point of the paper is for you to articulate, in detail, your argument about an idea or ideas. Your argument will naturally refer to secondary literature that supports (or diverges from) your ideas, and you must document someone else's ideas that help you clarify your own or that otherwise supplement them. But let me emphasize again that your paper is your argument about your idea. To this end, as the semester progresses you should record (in a journal or notebook or computer file dedicated to this class) your thoughts, questions, problems, and/or hypotheses, write down words or lines or whole sections of text that strike you as interesting or unusual, and jot down things that you simply are curious about. Sometimes a half-baked hunch is the beginning of an exciting, original idea. I am happy to discuss topics with you at any point during the semester, and I urge you to start thinking about this project sooner rather than later. The paper will be due, as specified by the registrar, no later than 4 p.m. on Friday, December 19th.

My philosophy of grading papers is as follows. An 'A' paper must have several qualities. It must have a thesis and an argument that supports it. It should have cogent logic, illuminating textual exegesis, and abundant and relevant details. It must have a clear structure suitable to the point it is making. The grammar and syntax must be correct, and it should have no typos. Its documentation (footnotes or endnotes, and bibliography) should follow a recognizable format and should be consistent (see the Research Aids section of the course web page for links to the MLA Handbook or the Chicago Manual of Style). A 'B' paper lacks one or two of these qualities, a 'C' paper most of them, a 'D' paper almost all of them. An 'F' paper is one on which the writer has evidently expended no effort. These qualities are all in the forefront of my mind as I read a paper. Having read the paper three times, I assign it a grade that answers to my impressions of it as a whole.

Students with disabilities who will be taking this course and who need disability-related classroom or testing accommodations are encouraged to see me as soon as possible. The Director of the Learning and Teaching Center and the Coordinator of Disability Services are available in the Learning and Teaching Center to assist students in arranging these accommodations.

Assignments
All texts (except Omeros) may be found on the Texts page.

Th 9.4
Introduction

M 9.8
Homer, Iliad, books 1, 2.484-end, 3-9.
R. Lattimore, “Introduction,” 12-17, and 37-44.
M. Edwards, Homer: Poet of the Iliad, 15-28, 42-54, 71-81, 102-110 (e-Reserve)

Feeling lost? Go to the “Reading Aids” section of the website, and find Troy on the maps there: www.wellesley.edu/ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/reading.html

Ever wonder what Homer sounded like? Go to the “Recitations” section of the course webpage, and listen to the opening lines of the Iliad, in Greek: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/Sounds/recitations.html

Having trouble keeping straight who is doing what to whom? Go to www.wellesley.edu/ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/reading.html, and check out the “who’s who” link.

In a paragraph or two, develop a response to these questions: What is heroism?
What is Achilles’ problem? Jot down some verse numbers or page numbers that you think illustrate your response.

Th 9.11
Homer, Iliad 10-18
J. M. Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad, 3-29, 99-127 (e-Reserve)

Why funerals & funeral games?

Having trouble keeping straight who is doing what to whom? Go to www.wellesley.edu/ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/reading.html, and check out the “who’s who” link.

And you can test yourself with a few ‘game show’ quizzes: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/diversions.html

M 9.15
Homer, Iliad 19-24
Redfield, Nature and Culture in the Iliad 128-159, 203-223

What is Hector’s error? Achilles’?

“Two men running for one man’s life”. The final battle between Achilles and Hector might make you cry or cheer (or both). You can listen to Derek Jacoby’s recitation (in English) by going to the “Recitations” section of the website: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/Sounds/recitations.html

Having trouble keeping straight who is doing what to whom? Go to www.wellesley.edu/ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/reading.html and check out the “who’s who” link.

Start planning for the midterm exam by testing yourself with a few ‘game show’ quizzes in the “Diversions” section of the course website: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/diversions.html

Th 9.18
Homer, Odyssey 1, 5-12
P. Parker, Literary Fat Ladies, 8-17 (e-Reserves).
Pietro Pucci, “Song of the Sirens” (e-Reserves).

Question: In one paragraph, either 1) summarize Pucci’s article; or 2) pick a female character from today’s reading and discuss her in light of Parker’s observations.

Here are the first lines of the Odyssey in Greek: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/Sounds/recitations.html

Can’t figure out where Odysseus has been, where he is, or where he’s going? Check out the map of his journeys in the “Reading Aids” section: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/reading.html

Having trouble keeping track of who’s who? Check this out: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/reading.html

M 9.22
Homer, Odyssey 13-24
C. Dougherty, The Raft of Odysseus 3-16, 81-101 (E-reserves)

Guest lecture by Professor Carol Dougherty of the Dept. of Classical Studies

Having trouble keeping track of who’s who? Check this out: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/reading.html

And check out the diversions here: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/diversions.html

Th 9.25
Virgil, Aeneid 1-4
R. Hexter, “Sidonian Dido”(E-reserve)
M. Desmond, Reading Dido: Gender, Textuality, and the Medieval Aeneid, pp. 24-33

Having trouble keeping track of who’s who? Point your browser to this page and scroll down to “Virgil”. /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/reading.html

Feeling lost? You and Aeneas both! Go to this page: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/reading.html Once you’re there, go to the “Homer” section to refresh your memory about the geography of the Mediterranean basin. Then scroll down to “Virgil” for a map of Italy, a map of Rome’s empire a few years after Virgil died, and a map of Aeneas’ journeys in books 1-6.

Wondering what the Aeneid sounded like when it was read in Rome? Go here and scroll down to “The Aeneid”: /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/Sounds/recitations.html

M 9.29
Virgil, Aeneid 5-7
Narrative of Late Republican Roman history. Go to the "Virgil" section of the Reading Aids page, and then to the link titled "a narrative of events during the late Republic". It would be good for you to read all of this, but you *must* read the section that begins "The Age of Caesar". You can use the "jump bar" utility at the head of the page to move to "The Age of Caesar."

Having trouble keeping track of who’s who? Point your browser to this page and scroll down to “Virgil”. /ClassicalStudies/CLCV211/reading.html

Th 10.2
Virgil, Aeneid 8

If you haven't finished reading the historical narrative (see assignment from previous class), you must do so by today.

M 10.6
Virgil, Aeneid 9-12

Denis Feeney, "Epic Violence, Epic Order: Killings, Catalogues, and the Role of the Reader in Aeneid 10" (e-Reserves)
W.R. Johnson, Darkness Visible (e-Reserves)

Th 10.9
Midterm Exam

FALL BREAK

Th 10.16
Lucan, Civil War 1-4

Narrative of Late Republican Roman history (the partnership and, later, the conflict of Caesar and Pompey). Go to the "Virgil" section of the Reading Aids page, and then to the link titled "a narrative of events during the late Republic". Begin at "The Age of Caesar" and read through the "murder of Caesar".

Read the brief summary of Nero's reign. Go to the "Virgil" section of the Reading Aids page, and then to the link titled "a narrative of events during the early empire". Then, scroll down to "Nero".

Go to the "Reading Aids" section of the webpage, and scroll down to "Lucan". Read the brief biography there, and check out the maps. Pharsalus? Huh? Make sure you know where we're talking about

Susannah H. Braund, “Introduction,” p. xiii-xxii, xxxvii-xxxix.

M 10.20
Lucan, Civil War 5-8
Quint, Epic and Empire, pp. 131-147

Th 10.23
Lucan, Civil War 9-end
Quint, Epic and Empire, pp. 147-157
Recommended: Quint, Epic and Empire, 157-209.

M 10.27
Milton, Paradise Lost 1-3

It's crucial that you master the basic political narrative, so point your browser to the "Reading Aids" section of the course website, scroll down to "Milton", and then click on the link "A brief history of Stuart England". Once you are there,make sure that you follow the links through "The Restoration: 1660-1685". Pay special attention to the "Gunpowder Plot". On the right hand side of that website are links to further articles and a couple of games -- follow your curiosity!

Nota Bene: there are two very useful websites for things Miltonic; links to both can be found in the "Reading Aids" section, under "Milton".

(An electronic version of Fletchers The Locusts or Apollyonists is available in the "Reading Aids" section of the course website. Scroll down to "Milton", and look for the link there)

Th 10.30
Milton, Paradise Lost4-6

M 11.3
Milton, Paradise Lost7-9

Quint, Epic and Empire, pp. 281-308.

Th 11.6
Milton, Paradise Lost10-12

C. Froula, "When Eve Reads Milton: Undoing the Canonical Economy"

M 11.10
G. Berkeley, "Verses on the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in America"

Recommended: Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The Poet" (go to the "Texts" section of the course website, and scroll down to "Modern")

Joel Barlow, "Preface" to The Columbiad (375-390), and Book 1 of the poem. Recommended: "Introduction" to The Columbiad (391-410).

J. McWilliams, The American Epic: Transforming a Genre, 1770-1860, p. 1-11; notes on p. 243-45)

Th 11.13
Whitman, Leaves of Grass, "Inscriptions" (continued from last class); "Song of the Exposition" (pp. 341-350); "Drum Taps" & "Memories of President Lincoln" (pp. 416-484)

M 11.17
Whitman, Leaves of Grass, "Backward Glance O'er Traveled Roads"

Th 11.20
Whitman, Leaves of Grass, "Backward Glance O'er Traveled Roads"

Th 12.4
NO CLASS

M 12.8
Retrospective & Conclusions

M 12.15 – F 12.19 FINAL EXAM PERIOD