CLAS 1020 - Course Overview

The myths and sagas of the Greeks and Romans, taught in particular through ancient literature.

Texts: Humphries, trans., Ovid: Metamorphoses, Indiana University Press, 1955; Lind, ed., Ten Greek Plays in Contemporary Translations, Houghton Mifflin, 1957; Morford and Lenardon, Classical Mythology, 6th ed., Longman, 1999; Vellacott, trans., Euripides: Medea and Other Plays, Penguin Books, 1982.

Course Overview

Introduction

This course is a survey of classical mythology as it was employed by the Greeks and Romans in their literature, art, and civilization. Such a course must of necessity be organized topically rather than chronologically; the organization I shall follow is that adopted by most ancient authors who wrote handbooks of mythology— including Ovid in the Metamorphoses (which you will read in the course)—i.e., to begin with the creation and generations of the gods, then discuss the mythology of the Olympian gods themselves, then follow the major and minor heroic cycles of Greek legend, concluding with the Trojan wars and their aftermath, and turning at the last to the legends and folk tales of the Romans. The course will introduce you to the many characters and tales of classical mythology, which are, along with the Christian Bible, our civilization’s richest source of symbols and allegories. You will read the Metamorphoses of Ovid essentially in its entirety, and complete plays of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides that develop and manipulate Greek myths. In addition, you will read a large number of selections from Greek and Latin authors, including Hesiod, Homer, Vergil, Pindar, Plato, the Homeric Hymns, and others, which demonstrate the views of myth and versions of the tales current among the ancients themselves. You will also learn to identify the gods and heroes as they are portrayed on ancient Greek pottery, which is our richest artistic source for mythology.

Your main objectives in the course should be

1. to learn the names, histories, and functions of the gods and heroes of classical myth;
2. to read ancient literary versions of these myths paying particular attention to the characteristics of each version of a story;
3. to read and understand the different methods by which different Greek and Roman writers can approach the same story, and attempt to analyze what element(s) of the myth seem most important to each author;
4. to learn the literary and the visual iconography of all the major gods, heroes, and legends of classical myth and to be able to identify them;
5. to think about the significance of the myths both to the ancients and to the rest of Western civilization.

Lesson Preparation

As with any course of study, you should become acquainted with the content and arrangement of the textbooks. First, glance through this course manual at each lesson, considering its scope and requirements. Then look at each of the books.

There are four in all, and they will be referred to in the assignments by the following abbreviations:

Ovid = Rolfe Humphries (trans.), Ovid: Metamorphoses

Plays = L. R. Lind (ed.), Ten Greek Plays in Contemporary Translations

CMyth = M. P. O. Morford and R. J. Lenardon, Classical Mythology

Eur = P. Vellacott (trans.), Euripides: Medea and Other Plays

The length of the assignments may vary; all four of the books will be used throughout the course. Every lesson (there are fourteen in all) in the course has a reading and a written assignment. You are responsible for and will be tested over all the reading assigned, whether written assignments cover it or not.

You are responsible for memorizing the names, correctly spelled, of divinities, heroes, monsters, places, authors, and artists as they come up. Your knowledge of this objective material will be tested on the final exam. Be sure that you learn this material in every lesson, and that you thoroughly refresh your memory of it before attempting the exam.

For most students, one lesson per week will be the maximum feasible rate to insure adequate study and retention. You should not apply for the final examination until all the lessons have been returned with a passing grade.