Classics

This unit builds on students’ pre-existing knowledge of Greek history and philosophy in order to explore dialectical and generic differences in Greek. Taking the theme of “Great Men”, we work with texts from Homer through to the New Testament, including the Homeric heroes, their depiction in tragedy, Socrates as a hero or anti-hero in different genres, Alexander the Great, characters in Plutarch, and Jesus. Students will gain an enhanced understanding of the relationship between language and culture, in intercultural influences and cultural development, in managing across multiple Greek dialects, in the role of translation as a form of interpretation, and in better use of scholarly resources for reading and translating ancient Greek beyond the Golden Age.

We start with an overview of the Greek dialects and their relationship with genres, from 1200 BC to AD 100. We then read sections of the Iliad and Odyssey, focussing on themes to do with literary techniques and the presentation of great men, alongside understanding the role of oral poetry and the constructed literary language of the Homeric epics in their context. We additionally read sections from Hesiod and the Homeric cycle in order to add literary context to the Homeric epics. Moving to fifth-century Athens, we then explore the ways in which each of the three major dramatists (Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides) depict major figures from the Homeric world in order to understand better the relationship between genre and culture. This theme of great men continues with an exploration of the figure of Socrates, as a “puppet” in Plato’s works, as a biographical figure in both Plato and Xenophon’s Apologies, and as the butt of satire in Aristophanes’ Clouds. The final literary section takes the theme of great men and explores how Alexander the Great is depicted, how Plutarch handles comparison in his parallel lives, and the relationship with the Gospel narratives of Jesus. This spread of texts enables a richer understanding of the relationship between genre, language, and context, and the continuing development of Greek across a 1300 year span. Language is not a cultural product in isolation, however, and so one session will be spent in the Ashmolean Museum, exploring the different representations of Greece and its great men in collections from Mycenae, Athens, North Africa, and Italy.

This unit focuses on themes in Latin poetry. Key topics will include the role of the author in their work, poetry as propaganda, love, death, and the natural world. We sample a range of the major poets, focussing in on key canonical texts, alongside some lesser known ones, in order to give students a balance of depth and breadth in understanding the role of Latin verse in the ancient world. We will also consider commentary on these poets by others such as Seneca and Cicero, in order to make use of students’ prior learning. Students will gain an enhanced understanding of the relationship between language and culture, in intercultural influences and cultural development, in the role of translation as a form of interpretation, and in better use of scholarly resources for reading and translating Latin verse, including with regard to metre.