DEPARTMENT OF CLASSICS

This course will serve as an Introduction to the history of Ancient Greece from the age of Homer (c. 7^th century BCE) to the death of Alexander the Great (323 BCE). We will focus primarily on literary sources, with emphasis on the social, political, and intellectual concerns that arose throughout the periods in question, but in particular in democratic Athens in the fifth century BCE. 

2,500 years after the birth of Athenian drama, classical tragedy and comedy continues to inspire and beguile us. In this course, we will read several masterpieces of Greek and Roman tragedy and comedy, as well as adaptations of these plays for the modern and contemporary stage. Throughout, we will examine how classical drama related to its original cultural contexts, how it addresses fundamental questions about human societies and relationships, why these plays continue to provoke reflection, and how audiences experienced and continue to experience classical drama. All readings will be in translation, and as part of the course we will also attend performances of ancient Greek plays.

This course is the second in the second-year Greek series, designed to solidify the grammatical concepts learned in first-year while introducing students to the study of actual ancient literary texts. In this course we will focus on reading Attic prose from the classical period. We will begin by reading an actual courtroom defense speech by the renowned rhetorician Lysias, and will then read a short philosophical dialogue from Plato. While paying close attention to grammar and style we will also use these texts as entry point for the study of ancient law and society itself.​

The goal of second-year Latin (201-1, 2, 3) is the development of proficiency in reading Latin through the introduction of the student to major works of Latin literature. In addition to the review and continued reinforcement of grammar and syntax, the class will read selections from Petronius and Cicero with attention to their interpretation and historical significance.

In 1927 T.S. Eliot could write of Seneca, “in modern times, few Latin authors have been more consistently damned.” Even more than his philosophical writings, which have been going in and out of style since he wrote them, his career as tragic playwright has provoked particular disgust. And yet, you could scarcely find a working Latinist today who still feels this way about these plays. Their “faults” have become the very things that interest us, now that we (think we’ve) come to understand them: their “rhetorical” nature and verbal exuberance, the penchant for horror, the dark fascination with the individual’s inner intellectual life and moral reasoning at their most brilliantly fallacious and spectacularly hideous. Reason’s hijacking by the vengeful Will, Philosophy’s limp and abortive resistance to Madness, and Evil’s terrifyingly recognizable glee ​at its conquest over all it surveys. Just to start.

In this class, we will read in Latin extensive selections of several tragedies, especially the Medea and Thyestes. You’ll like it, and feel bad that you like, and feel awesome that you feel bad that you like it. It’ll be great. Delicious, even.